[bleedlikeme]

STARE KIEJKUTY, Poland — On an idyllic lake surrounded by woods and a double row of mesh-and-razor-wire fences about 100 miles north of Warsaw, there stands a secluded villa that the CIA once used to interrogate – and allegedly torture – top al Qaida suspects.

On the grounds of the Polish intelligence-training academy and nicknamed “Markus Wolf” for the former East German spy chief, it’s the focal point for a top-secret probe that Polish prosecutors have launched into how their government tolerated rampant violations of international and Polish law.

If former officials are brought to trial, or if the stacks of classified files in the prosecutors’ offices are made public, the result will be revelations about an American anti-terrorism operation whose details U.S. officials are fighting to keep secret.

Already the prosecutor has charged Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, Poland’s former interior minister and intelligence chief, with unlawful detention and corporal punishment for allowing the CIA to operate at Stare Kiejkuty from December 2002 to September 2003.

And the prosecutor’s office has given victim status in the case to two men the U.S. is holding indefinitely at Guantanamo: Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a Saudi charged with masterminding the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, and Abu Zubaydah, whom the Bush administration once described as the third-ranking leader of al Qaida but who may have been only a safe house minder. Nashiri faces a possible death sentence; Abu Zubaydah, who’s been held for 10 years, hasn’t been charged.

Their status as victims comes from claims that they were kidnapped by U.S. authorities, brought to Poland illegally, tortured, then spirited from Poland to other detention centers without the legally required extradition proceedings.

The villa cannot be seen from the main road or spotted on Google Earth maps. At the request of Polish authorities, its location has been blurred, the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza reported.

That’s what some parts of the Polish government would like to have happen to everything that took place here.

State prosecutors, on the other hand, seem motivated to bring the case to court. The Polish investigation is now in its fifth year, has twice been reassigned to new prosecutors and will run at least until mid-February, it was announced last week. It is, to date, the only criminal prosecution in the world related to the CIA’s so-called “black sites.” The Obama administration has declined to investigate what happened at any of the sites, which included facilities in Thailand, Romania and Lithuania.


Visitors are not welcome to take the path to the villa in Stare Kiejkuty,
where the CIA once interrogated Al Qaida suspects in northern Poland.
(Roy Gutman/MCT)


Read more...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/08/13/162137/poland-peels-back-layers-on-secret.html

[dormin]

This is where wikileaks would come in really handy. Any government should not be allowed to break its own rules like this. They should simply legalize it so they no longer break the law to protect the law.

Not condoning torture here just to be clear. Simply saying that breaking the law in this manner should not be acceptable. Countries have been taken over and leaders killed because they did this to their own. And now it appears the US of A is doing what they fought to eliminate? I am confused.

[Ragnarok9999]

How can the US justify this? Torture is in breach of the Geneva convention, the US signed it! For some reason they think that as long as it isn't "technically" happening on US soil, it then doesn't count? :/

[tomandsusan]

I thought our President was going to stop all that. Close Guantánamo and all that other BS he said to get elected the first time. I guess what he meant was all that stuff will be done in secret now. Oh yeah, lets give the lying idiot another four years!

Bill Clinton, America NEEDS YOU!

[Gandolph13]

Quote:

Bill Clinton, America NEEDS YOU!

And Monica needs you too, you always left her speechless!