Council of Europe Finds Credible Evidence that US Detention Sites and Flights Were Unlawful, Investigation to Continue

Dick Marty, the Council of Europe Rapporteur to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights announced today that there is credible evidence of secret detention centers and of detainees being transported through Council member states without required judicial involvement. No detainees are currently being held by the United States in Europe, though Poland and Romania are believed to be the two European states in which the US operated the detention centers. Any detainees that had been held in Europe, Marty asserted, the US has moved to North Africa. Marty made clear that his report does not conclude that wrongdoing has taken place, but rather that the allegations of illegality — most of which are familiar from press reports and from investigations by human rights groups — are credible. His full report to the Council is due in January. Here are some excerpts from today’s statement:

From a general point of view, the rapporteur underlined that the information gathered to date reinforced the credibility of the allegations concerning the transfer and temporary detention of individuals, without any judicial involvement, in European countries.

Legal proceedings in progress in certain countries seemed to indicate that individuals had been abducted and transferred to other countries without respect for any legal standards. It had to be noted that the allegations had never been formally denied by the United States. The rapporteur takes note of the situation and deplores the fact that no information or explanations had been provided on this point by Ms Rice during her visit to Europe.

The rapporteur urges all member governments to commit themselves fully to establishing the truth about flights over their territories in recent years by aeroplanes carrying individuals arrested and detained without any judicial involvement. The Rapporteur intends to ask the leaders of the parliamentary delegations to the Assembly to take initiatives within their parliaments in order to obtain more precise information on this matter, either by putting questions to their governments or by proposing the setting up of committees of enquiry. In fact, the delegations to the Parliamentary Assembly can make use of their unique position to lobby national parliaments to shed light on the matter. Mr Marty welcomes the fact that steps have already been taken here by certain national parliaments.

While it was still too early to assert that there had been any involvement or complicity of member states in illegal actions, the seriousness of the allegations and the consistency of the information gathered to date justified the continuation of an in-depth inquiry. If the allegations proved correct, the member states would stand accused of having seriously breached their human rights obligations to the Council of
Europe.

In this connection, the rapporteur underlined that, although contacts between secret services were entirely normal and even necessary in the fight against terrorism, it was important for governments to exercise proper supervision over them (see here the detailed principles set out by the Assembly in Recommendation 1402 (1999) on control of internal security services in Council of Europe member states).

Dick Marty stressed that the aim of the Parliamentary Assembly, as the Council of Europe’s political/parliamentary organ, was not to condemn individual countries or seek to impose penalties but to defend the values shared by the member states and combat terrorism resolutely and thoroughly, while, however, complying with the fundamental principles of states founded on the rule of law and the observance of human rights.

The full press release from the Council is here. I am not familiar with the principles governing intelligence service cooperation in the Council, but it appears that the investigation is focused on the extent to which the members of the Council have complied with those as well as other minimum human rights requirements in the Charter.

As I blogged last week, the European investigations will likely remain a focus of trans-Atlantic relations until the Council investigation is complete and, perhaps until some of the legal proceedings (including this case brought in Italy against CIA officials) are resolved.

NB: The Italy case raises some interesting questions about the application of consular immunity to a U.S. intelligence officer operating under official consular/diplomatic cover.