US 'needs more time' to 'evaluate' EU torture gulag
FT/reuters: EU states hosting CIA jails may face sanctions
Any European Union state that secretly hosted a CIA prison faces loss of its voting rights, and Washington should punish any violations that occurred, an EU commissioner said on Monday.
Franco Frattini, commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, said that under EU law, if reports of secret CIA jails were true, states would face "serious consequences, including the suspension of the right to vote in the Council".
The EU Council brings together ministers of the 25 member countries and is the bloc's main decision-making body.
Frattini's comments were his most explicit to date on the implications for any country found to have hosted a secret CIA facility for interrogating terrorist suspects.
The Washington Post this month reported the existence of such prisons in Eastern Europe, and campaign group Human Rights Watch named Poland and Romania as the most likely hosts.[db-as did Seymour Hersh]
Both deny it, a position reiterated on Monday by Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski. "Such prisons do not exist on Polish territory ... and there have not been any," Kwasniewski said.
Frattini said a senior commission official raised the report with the White House and State Department on a visit to Washington last week, but U.S. officials asked for more time to respond. "Right now, unfortunately (we have) no formal reassurances on that," Frattini told a news conference in Berlin. "They told us: 'Give us the appropriate time to evaluate the situation,'" Frattini said.
Asked about possible consequences for EU-U.S. relations, he said: "Our attitude will depend on how long ... it will take" for Washington to respond to the allegations. He said the EU's first request to the U.S. government would be to "punish, very strongly" any violations. Read more
db: Clearly the US 'needs more time' to concoct a story with it's Eurotorture partners.
Any European Union state that secretly hosted a CIA prison faces loss of its voting rights, and Washington should punish any violations that occurred, an EU commissioner said on Monday.
Franco Frattini, commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, said that under EU law, if reports of secret CIA jails were true, states would face "serious consequences, including the suspension of the right to vote in the Council".
The EU Council brings together ministers of the 25 member countries and is the bloc's main decision-making body.
Frattini's comments were his most explicit to date on the implications for any country found to have hosted a secret CIA facility for interrogating terrorist suspects.
The Washington Post this month reported the existence of such prisons in Eastern Europe, and campaign group Human Rights Watch named Poland and Romania as the most likely hosts.[db-as did Seymour Hersh]
Both deny it, a position reiterated on Monday by Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski. "Such prisons do not exist on Polish territory ... and there have not been any," Kwasniewski said.
Frattini said a senior commission official raised the report with the White House and State Department on a visit to Washington last week, but U.S. officials asked for more time to respond. "Right now, unfortunately (we have) no formal reassurances on that," Frattini told a news conference in Berlin. "They told us: 'Give us the appropriate time to evaluate the situation,'" Frattini said.
Asked about possible consequences for EU-U.S. relations, he said: "Our attitude will depend on how long ... it will take" for Washington to respond to the allegations. He said the EU's first request to the U.S. government would be to "punish, very strongly" any violations. Read more
db: Clearly the US 'needs more time' to concoct a story with it's Eurotorture partners.
posted by exoplanet at 5:54 PM
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