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| 22.11.200908:52 (GMT) | Twice in the past three years, the Lithuanian Parliament investigated reports that the US CIA secretly imprisoned Al-Qaeda leaders in this Baltic country. Both times, legislators concluded that there was no evidence, The Washington Post reports. Now the Parliament is investigating a third time, and it is looking a little harder, the paper marks. Many Lithuanian officials said they remain unconvinced that their country’s secret services allowed the CIA to detain international terrorists.
In neighboring Poland, prosecutors in the capital of Warsaw have opened a criminal probe into reports that the CIA operated a prison for Al-Qaeda suspects near a former military air base. No charges have been filed, and it is unclear how far along prosecutors are in their investigation, The Washington Post notes.
Dainius Zalimas, a legal adviser to the Lithuanian Defense Ministry, said the existence of a covert prison would violate both Lithuanian statutes and international human rights conventions that the government signed. If firm evidence is gathered by the Parliament, he said, prosecutors would be obliged to open a case and could target both Lithuanian and US officials. Legal specialists said the odds of a successful prosecution are remote, given the extremely secret nature of the CIA’s overseas prison network for terrorism suspects.On November 19, Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Vygaudas Usackas told the Baltic News Service that "there are more important things in Lithuania than spending two days denying the gossip of ABC journalists." Usackas called the ABC Report “rumours and wild tales,” but much of the report was backed up by a simultaneous report by The Washington PostLithuania and other European countries have been encouraged by a 2007 Council of Europe resolution to reveal "the existence of a 'spider's web' of illegal transfers of detainees woven by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in which Council of Europe member states were involved.”
The alleged former secret jail is now owned by the Lithuanian government and serves as an academy for its security services.
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