EU must investigate allegations of "war on terror" jails

Speech by Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP delivered to Radio 4 - The Today Programme on Tue 15th Nov 2005

John Humphries: the European Parliament wants to know what the CIA is up to in Europe, whether there are secret internment camps. Baroness Ludford is the Liberal Democrat Justice Spokesman. Who thinks there are, Lady Ludford?

Sarah Ludford: Good morning John. About two weeks ago the Washington Post, which is a credible newspaper, backed up by the human rights NGO Human Rights Watch said that there had been talk of ghost detainees held by the CIA for some years

JH: ghost detainees?

SL: Yes, there are fears of maltreatment, and even torture. There are specific allegations that some of these sites are in Eastern Europe, specifically Poland and Romania.

JH: But what is a ghost detainee?

SL: Well, people who are held secretly, incommunicado, without access to a lawyer. Obviously we have known about Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib for four years, but these would be people who aren't accounted for and so of course are much more vulnerable to maltreatment. If it's true that there are such sites in Poland and Romania or any other Eastern European country, this will have a devastating impact on the EU's credibility as an upholder of human rights.

JH: Well, they could function only with the approval of the authorities of Poland or wherever, surely?

SL: Possibly, although I'm afraid we do have a track record of intelligence services perhaps having their own agenda, bearing in mind that some of these countries have not come out of totalitarianism all that long ago. So when we asked the European Commissioner to investigate, we did expect him to do just that. But he came back last night with a truly feeble response, consisting of "well I asked them and they denied it." I believe that he could have done a lot better, because the EU treaties do provide for action against members states guilty of a serious breach of human rights and the rule of law.

JH: Well you have to prove that there's been one first!

SL: Well you have to have an investigation first and he admitted that he hadn't done that. Since the Czech government has acknowledged that it was asked by the United States to host such a facility and refused, that does add a certain credibility to the allegations. So all we were asking him to do was actually do an investigation, and he could have asked, for instance, that EU ministers discuss it at a Council of Ministers Ministerial meeting, or asked the EU's counter-terrorism co-ordinator, who is a former Dutch Minister, to do a real investigation.

JH: Right, so can you do anything yourselves now? Can you force them to do anything?

SL: I think we should, in the Parliament's Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, consider how we as a parliament can take this forward to request that a proper investigation should be done. I'm not impugning the good name of the Polish and Romanian governments, but we do know that some very funny flights might have taken place, and other governments like Spain, Italy and Germany are doing there own investigations on their own territories, and I think we need to help Poland and Romania to clear their name.

JH: Sarah Ludford, many thanks.