CIA rendition flights through Ireland in breach of international law
Green Party Foreign Affairs spokesperson John Gormley TD reacted to the publication today of a draft report by the European Parliament’s committee on the CIA’s alleged use of European countries for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners.
Deputy Gormley said: “It is clear that flights used by the CIA in the purposes of ‘extraordinary rendition’ passed through Shannon airport. This represents a clear breach of international law. Ireland has, and apparently more than once, played its part in the extra-judicial detainment and transport of citizens – in some cases to countries where the violent torture of prisoners is commonplace. CIA-operated aircraft made nearly 150 stopovers at Irish airports, according to the draft report.
“Fianna Fail continues to bury its head in the sand on this issue, and on the wider issue of our complicity in relation to the war in Iraq. The very fact that Minister Dermot Ahern continues to claim that this is part of a 50 year standing arrangement shows that he is living in denial. A report from his own Department of Foreign Affairs states very clearly that the arrangement for military stopovers with the US was on an ‘exceptional basis’. Are we to presume then, that allowing flights used for rendition purposes to pass through Shannon was on a very exceptional basis?
“We hope that our Green colleagues in the European Parliament will make the Minister sweat when he appears before them in Brussels on Thursday.”