Thursday, January 12, 2006

Romania and secret CIA prisons

Romania and secret CIA prisons
Posted by Onnesha Roychoudhuri on January 11, 2006 at 1:16 PM.

Hey, remember when Secretary of State Condi Rice was dodging questions on whether or not there were secret CIA prisons in Romania? And the Romanian president was adamant that no such prisons existed in his country? A leaked fax points to further evidence (as if we didn't have enough already) that there was, in fact, a secret detainment facility in Romania.

Since then, former Romanian President Ion Iliescu has changed his confident tune, to match the "we had no idea" chorus of other European countries like Poland, Italy and Germany. The China Post reports
The government has not responded to the latest allegations published Monday, but President Traian Basescu and Romania's Defense Ministry have firmly denied previous reports that Romania hosted such sites. However, Ioan Mircea Pascu, Romania's defense minister in 2001-2004, told the AP that parts of Mihail Kogalniceanu [airport] were off-limits to Romanian authorities.
Don't ask, don't tell policy, perhaps? Hopefully, Condi will be there to do more than praise Romania as one of Washington's 'best allies,'" when the EU refuses them membership. In fact, the leaked fax points to similar U.S. detention centers in Kosovo, Macedonia, Ukraine and Bulgaria. All of these countries now face delays in EU accession.