WP: New Swedish Documents Illuminate CIA Action ("Rendition")

[Pirate Smile]

New Swedish Documents Illuminate CIA Action
Probe Finds 'Rendition' Of Terror Suspects Illegal

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 21, 2005; Page A01

STOCKHOLM -- The CIA Gulfstream V jet touched down at a small airport west of here just before 9 p.m. on a subfreezing night in December 2001. A half-dozen agents wearing hoods that covered their faces stepped down from the aircraft and hurried across the tarmac to take custody of two prisoners, suspected Islamic radicals from Egypt.

Inside an airport police station, Swedish officers watched as the CIA operatives pulled out scissors and rapidly sliced off the prisoners' clothes, including their underwear, according to newly released Swedish government documents and eyewitness statements. They probed inside the men's mouths and ears and examined their hair before dressing the pair in sweat suits and draping hoods over their heads. The suspects were then marched in chains to the plane, where they were strapped to mattresses on the floor in the back of the cabin.

So began an operation that the CIA calls an "extraordinary rendition," the forcible and highly secret transfer of terrorism suspects to their home countries or other nations where they can be interrogated with fewer legal protections. The practice has generated increasing criticism from civil liberties groups; in Sweden a parliamentary investigator who conducted a 10-month probe into the case recently concluded that the CIA operatives violated Swedish law by subjecting the prisoners to "degrading and inhuman treatment" and by exercising police powers on Swedish soil.

"Should Swedish officers have taken those measures, I would have prosecuted them without hesitation for the misuse of public power and probably would have asked for a prison sentence," the investigator, Mats Melin, said in an interview. He said he could not charge the CIA operatives because he is authorized to investigate only Swedish government officials, but he did not rule out the possibility that other Swedish prosecutors could do so.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/20/AR2005052001605.html

[struggle4progress]

1. kick

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

2. Very interesting...

... Swedes are such level headed folks.

[enough]

3. kick

[gorbal]

4. Yes, please swedes

We love your commitment to peace and you well-run government and your Noble Peace prize, now show us some backbone.

[zippy890]

5. our tax dollars being used for this

is horrible. One can only imagine the torture these people will receive.

These acts are as bad as those the government seeks to avenge.

We must stop this, we have to stop this monster government of ours.

I wonder if it is possible to figure out what percentage of our federal income tax is going to the Iraq War, and the funding of such paractices described above.

We could withold paying that % of taxes - put in escrow - as protest, --- wasn't it Henry David Thoreau did something like that.

Otherwise I fear we are complicit in horrible criminal acts against human beings.

[annabanana]

8. this is how dominionists dominate...

lawless and unaccountable

[IChing]

6. New Swedish Documents Illuminate CIA Action

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 21, 2005; Page A01


STOCKHOLM -- The CIA Gulfstream V jet touched down at a small airport west of here just before 9 p.m. on a subfreezing night in December 2001. A half-dozen agents wearing hoods that covered their faces stepped down from the aircraft and hurried across the tarmac to take custody of two prisoners, suspected Islamic radicals from Egypt.

Inside an airport police station, Swedish officers watched as the CIA operatives pulled out scissors and rapidly sliced off the prisoners' clothes, including their underwear, according to newly released Swedish government documents and eyewitness statements. They probed inside the men's mouths and ears and examined their hair before dressing the pair in sweat suits and draping hoods over their heads. The suspects were then marched in chains to the plane, where they were strapped to mattresses on the floor in the back of the cabin.>>>snip


"Should Swedish officers have taken those measures, I would have prosecuted them without hesitation for the misuse of public power and probably would have asked for a prison sentence," the investigator, Mats Melin, said in an interview. He said he could not charge the CIA operatives because he was authorized to investigate only Swedish government officials, but he did not rule out the possibility that other Swedish prosecutors could do so.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/20/AR2005052001605.html

[LightningFlash]

7. Maybe this better represents where the CIA should be directed....

To the very tangled up scandal from afar they practically relish in.

http://houseofscandal.org

Now that place is a pretty sight in every possibility.

[rodeodance]

9. Swedes taken aback by "swiftness and precission" of CIA--

....The basic facts of the Stockholm rendition were reported last year; this article is based on newly released documents from the parliamentary probe that provide elaborate details about an operation that normally unfolds entirely out of public view and about the government deliberations that preceded it.

Swedish security police said they were taken aback by the swiftness and precision of the CIA agents that night. Investigators concluded that the Swedes essentially stood aside and let the Americans take control of the operation, moving silently and communicating with hand signals, the documents show.

"I can say that we were surprised when a crew stepped out of the plane that seemed to be very professional, that had obviously done this before," Arne Andersson, an assistant director for the Swedish national security police, told government investigators.

At 9:47 p.m., less than an hour after its arrival at Bromma Airport, the jet took off on a five-hour flight to Cairo, where the prisoners, Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad Zery, were handed over to Egyptian security officials.

The CIA has not acknowledged playing any part in the expulsion of the two men. An agency spokesman in Washington declined to comment for this article, and U.S. Embassy officials in Stockholm also declined to answer questions..............

[rodeodance]

11. neith CIA nor US embassy if talking (natually)

.The CIA has not acknowledged playing any part in the expulsion of the two men. An agency spokesman in Washington declined to comment for this article, and U.S. Embassy officials in Stockholm also declined to answer questions..............

[librechik]

17. They have to get their stories straight

They're so arrogant they never imagine they're going to get caught, so they never have a good excuse. Or else they just don't care.

Gonzalez is going to have a busy weekend. Of course, he's covered this time, because he changed the law so that the president can do no wrong "during war time."

Changing that law back is Job One before any Democrat holds office again, bet on it.

[IChing]

10. anal suppositories and diapers

"Zery later complained to his lawyers that the CIA agents tranquilized him by inserting suppositories in his anus during the search and that the two prisoners were forced to wear diapers. Swedish police officers said they couldn't recall if the Egyptians had been forcibly medicated."

"It's quite clear that laws were broken. It is against Swedish law and against international law," said Anna Wigenmark, a lawyer for the Swedish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, which has worked on behalf of the Egyptian suspects. She and other human rights advocates have charged that the treatment of Agiza and Zery also violated the European Convention on Human Rights.

[ooglymoogly]

12. seeing ourselves through the mirror of the world lens

instead of the rose colored glasses of this criminal admin. not very comforting.

[Toots]

13. "Should Swedish officers have taken those measures, I would have prosecute

At least there is still hope that the rest of the world has not turned Criminal. The US has been overtaken by Criminal Thugs and I don't know how it will get rid of them. I guess the US can just wallow in it's vileness.

[K8-EEE]

14. BushCo Are Happy Participants In Terror

In never occurs to them to STOP BEING TERRORISTS THEMSELVES. What earthly good could this do? They are just a bunch of thugs and when clueless freepers whine "why do they HATE us?" DUH! Because we have a Culture of Thugs who have taken over and have absolutely destroyed our country's reputation and credibility. The word the the United States means absolutely nothing anywhere in the world anymore, except to stupid ass Freepers.

[IChing]

15. "freedom's remarkable progress"

"Look, our strategy is to create chaos, to create a vacuum...We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of our great nation." - *George W Bush, 2002.

[librechik]

16. Thanks you thank you thank you Swedish Whistleblowers!

I am so grateful to any international presence with compassion who can help us. We've been Shanghaied! Save us! These guys are scary!

Sliced off their clothes, probed em, and then in chains!

Those are OUR GUYS, Lurkers! When are you going to wake up and do something???

[jazzjunkysue]

18. "Gimme that faith-based rendition, gimme that faith-based rendition"

"Gimme that faith-based rendition, it's good enough for me."


(Sung to the tune of Gimme That Old Time Religion.)

Can you imagine how horrible things would be if the pagan non-believers were running this theocracy? Thank goodness the xtians are in charge, so we have no reason to worry....

[paineinthearse]

19. To Attorney General Tom O'Reilly of the Peoples' Republic of Massachusetts

Hope you are you keeping tabs on the Gulfstream jet registered to one of the Red Sox partners.

p.s. Please return my messages.

[ausiedownunderground]

20. Very disappointing Sweden-Let The "Bush Gang" run all over you!

This is not a good sign! If the Swedes let Bushco run all over them, then no wonder The "Bush Gang" are running around doing what their doing! Swedes are fairly democratic normally, so if their government has collapsed under The "Bush Gang's" pressure, then obviously most Anglo-Saxon countries are also becoming party to this "Crusade"!!!