Air firm accused of rendition flights role-US attempting to halt lawsuit connecting CIA

[babylonsister]

Air firm accused of rendition flights role
Submitted by davidswanson on Thu, 2007-11-29 02:22. Criminal Prosecution

By Ian Cobain, The Guardian

The US government is attempting to halt a lawsuit that could establish whether any of the Central Intelligence Agency's so-called rendition flights have been partly planned on British soil. Lawyers representing a number of men who have been held at Guantánamo are suing Jeppesen Dataplan, a subsidiary of the Boeing Corporation, accusing Jeppesen of involvement in the flights that took the men to secret prisons around the world. Once there, the men say, they were tortured.

The lawyers say they strongly suspect that at least some of the logistic support for the CIA's flights was arranged at Jeppesen's office in Crawley, West Sussex, a few miles from Gatwick airport.

However, the US government is asking a federal court to dismiss the lawsuit because "to proceed would risk the disclosure of highly classified information" about the agency's methods.

According to Washington's arguments, that information would include "whether any private entities or other countries assisted the CIA", as well as the locations of any secret prisons and "the methods of interrogation employed".

The men's lawyers at Reprieve, a London-based legal charity, say that if the case is dismissed, they may sue Jeppesen for damages in the English courts.

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[saigon68]

1. This is just business as usual