CIA prisoners in Europe abducted and transferred illegally

An investigator looking into claims of secret CIA prisons in Europe said Tuesday that people were apparently abducted and transferred between countries illegally. Swiss senator Dick Marty told a news conference that he believed the United States was no longer holding prisoners clandestinely in Europe. He believes they were moved to North Africa in early November, when reports about the secret detention centers appeared in The Washington Post.

In a written report, Marty said that information gathered so far "reinforced the credibility of the allegations concerning the transfer and temporary detention of individuals, without any judicial involvement, in European countries."

"Legal proceedings in progress in certain countries seemed to indicate that individuals had been abducted and transferred to other countries without respect for any legal standards," he added in his findings presented in Paris to a committee of the Council of Europe, the continent's human rights watchdog. Marty is investigating claims that the CIA transferred prisoners through European airports to secret detention centers, actions that would breach the continent's human rights principles.

Poland and Romania have been identified by the New York-based Human Rights Watch as sites of possible CIA secret prisons, but both countries have repeatedly denied any involvement. Marty, in his report, added that it was "still too early to assert that there had been any involvement or complicity of member states in illegal actions", reports the AP.