Black sites

POLAND has become the first jurisdiction to suffer the consequences of taking part in the American government's secret detention and torture programme, launched in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 in New York. The European Court of Human Rights published a verdict on today finding that Poland had allowed the CIA to operate a so-called “black site” detention facility at Stare Kiejkuty, an air base in north-eastern Poland, where the Americans held prisoners snatched up as part of its global war against Islamic terrorism.

“The treatment to which the applicants had been subjected by the CIA during their detention in Poland had amounted to torture,” found the unanimous ruling by the seven-judge panel. It added that although Polish authorities were probably not aware of what the Americans were doing on the base, the Poles should have ensured that anyone being held on Polish territory was being treated properly.

The Strasbourg-based tribunal castigated Poland for its drawn-out investigation of the accusations. The Polish probe, launched in 2008, has not been completed. The court also found that Poland has to pay each of the two men €100,000 ($135,000) in damages, and needs to intervene with American authorities to ensure that one of the men not face the death penalty in an eventual American trial. The verdicts are not final; the...Continue reading