Probe finds 'rendition' of terror suspects illegal.

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/052105X.shtml

 

New Swedish Documents Illuminate CIA Action

By Craig Whitlock

The Washington Post

 

Saturday 21 May 2005

 

Probe finds 'rendition' of terror suspects illegal.

 

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 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 was authorized to investigate only Swedish

government officials, but he did not rule out the possibility that

other Swedish prosecutors could do so.

 

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 US Embassy officials in Stockholm also declined to

answer questions.

 

CIA officials have testified that they have used rendition for

years after tracking down suspected terrorists around the world. They

say the US government receives assurances of humane treatment from the

countries where the suspects are taken. Human rights groups say that

such pledges, from governments with long histories of torture, are

worthless.

 

The two Egyptians later told lawyers, relatives and Swedish

diplomats that they were subjected to electric shocks and other forms

of torture soon after their forced return to their country.

 

Agiza, a physician, was convicted in an Egyptian military court

and sentenced to 15 years in prison after a trial that lasted six

hours. He was charged with being a leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a

radical group that the US government has listed as a terrorist

organization. He and his lawyers have acknowledged that he once worked

with Ayman Zawahiri, a fellow Egyptian and the ideological leader of

al Qaeda, but say that he cut ties with the group many years ago.

 

Zery was released from prison in October 2003. Egyptian officials

notified the Swedish government last year that he was no longer under

suspicion. His lawyer said he remained under surveillance.

 

The Swedish government kept the CIA's role in the case a secret

for more than three years. Then, in 2004, following unofficial reports

of the rendition, it released documents showing that a US-registered

plane had been used to transport the Egyptians to Cairo but said the

details were classified. It wasn't until March, when the parliamentary

investigator released his findings, that the CIA's direct involvement

was publicly confirmed.

 

The revelations created a stir in Sweden, which has long been

outspoken in its support of international human rights. A

parliamentary committee is scheduled to open hearings on government

officials' handling of the expulsion.

 

Although the parliamentary investigator concluded that the Swedish

security police deserved " extremely grave criticism " for losing

control of the operation and for being " remarkably submissive to the

American officials, " no Swedish officials have been charged or

disciplined.

 

" 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.

 

" It's unacceptable that something like this could happen on

Swedish soil and yet nothing has been done about it, " Wigenmark said.

 

Before their expulsion, the two men had lived in Sweden for

extended periods and had applied for political asylum.

 

The Swedish government has revealed little about why it suddenly

decided to expel them, three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks

in the United States. It has said only that the decision was made on

the basis of secret intelligence information, some of it from foreign

services, indicating that the men posed a security threat. Swedish

officials have refused to disclose any of the evidence or reveal where

the information came from.

 

Fresh details of the transfer are contained in more than 100 pages

of interview transcripts with Swedish police officers who witnessed

the events at the Stockholm airport and police commanders who oversaw

the case, as well as in other documents from the national security

police. The records describe a hectic and haphazardly planned effort

to deport the men.

 

Swedish security police wanted to arrest the men and put them on a

flight to Cairo immediately to avoid giving their lawyers a chance to

file an emergency appeal in court.

 

Swedish government ministers hastily scheduled a meeting for Dec.

18, 2001, to formally approve the expulsion. But the security police

were unable to charter a flight to take the Egyptians to Cairo until

the next morning. Police officials, worried about an overnight delay,

turned to the CIA for help, according to the documents.

 

CIA officials told the Swedes they had a private jet with special

security clearances that could fly nonstop to Cairo on a moment's

notice. Andersson, the Swedish police commander in charge of the case,

characterized the offer as a " friendly favor from the CIA which

allowed us to have a plane that had direct access throughout Europe

and could take care of the operation very rapidly. "

 

About 2:30 p.m. on Dec. 18, the CIA plane left Cairo for

Stockholm. About a half-hour later, the Swedish government ministers

voted to expel Agiza and Zery.

 

By 5 p.m., Swedish police had arrested both men and were waiting

for the plane to arrive. Already, however, problems had begun to surface.

 

Two unnamed officials from the US Embassy informed Swedish

officers that there would be no room on the jet for them on the trip

back to Cairo. The Swedes complained and were ultimately given two

seats on the plane, but raw feelings persisted.

 

" I felt that they were backing into our territory, " an

unidentified female Swedish security officer told investigators,

according to a transcript of her interview.

 

More conflicts arose after the plane landed. One Swedish officer

walked up the steps of the aircraft to greet the crew and was

surprised to see that the agents - a half-dozen or so Americans and

two Egyptians - were wearing hoods with semi-opaque fabric around the

face, even though the small airport was essentially deserted.

 

" I told them that you don't need to wear hoods because there is no

one here, " the officer recalled in his statement to investigators. The

foreign agents ignored him.

 

The Swedish police said they were also perplexed by a demand from

US agents that they be allowed to strip-search the prisoners, even

though the two men had already been searched and were in handcuffs.

The Swedes relented after the captain of the plane said he would

refuse to depart unless the Americans were allowed to do things their

way, the documents show.

 

The prisoners were taken into the airport police station, one by

one, to be searched.

 

One agent quickly slit their clothes with a pair of scissors and

examined each piece of cloth before placing it in a plastic bag.

Another agent checked the suspects' hair, mouths and lips, while a

third agent took photographs from behind, according to Swedish

officers who witnessed the searches.

 

As the prisoners stood there, naked and motionless, they were

zipped into gray tracksuits and their heads were covered with hoods

that, in the words of one Swedish officer, " covered everything, like a

big cone. "

 

Swedish police later marveled that the whole search procedure took

less than 10 minutes. " It surprised me, " one officer told

investigators. " How the hell did they dress him so fast? "

 

Paul Forell, a Swedish airport police officer who was on duty that

night, added: " Everything was very smooth, professional. I mean, I

thought, they have done this before. "

 

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.

 

Investigators did find a report written by one of the Swedish

officers that said Agiza and Zery were both " probably given a

tranquilizer before takeoff. "

 

While investigators said they could not prove that the prisoners

had been forcibly medicated, such a tactic would have violated Swedish

law.

 

In a January letter to parliamentary investigators, the new

director of the security police, Klas Bergenstrand, said the decision

to rely on the CIA was a mistake.

 

" In my judgment, it is clear that some of the measures adopted

after the two Egyptians had arrived at Bromma Airport were excessive

in relation to the actual risks that existed, " Bergenstrand wrote.

" For my part, I would find it alien to use a foreign aircraft with

foreign security staff. "

 

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