Ukraine linked to CIA rendition operations

Photo: Ukraine linked to CIA rendition operations

Democratic U.S. ally Ukraine was said by an EU investigator Wednesday to host CIA-operated planes, involved in the U.S. extraordinary rendition program, on its airstrip.

Giovanni Fava said he was also looking into possible CIA use of a military facility at a Ukrainian base near the border with Poland. Fava, an Italian member of the European Parliament, drafted a report last year identifying more than 1,000 secret CIA flights with stopovers on European territory since 2001. Several of them were used to transfer terror suspects.

In a report earlier this year, Swiss investigator Dick Marty accused the CIA of running secret prisons in Poland and Romania to interrogate key terror suspects. He said prisoners were typically shackled and handcuffed, kept naked and in isolation.

The CIA, while stopping short of a denial, said the report was "distorted." Poland and Romania vehemently denied the charges.