European Parliament Report On CIA Outsourcing Torture

Brian Knowlton for the NY Times reports A new report by the European Parliament bluntly rejected the assertions by several European countries that they were unaware of a C.I.A. program to secretly abduct, transport and detain terrorist suspects. “Many governments cooperated passively or actively” with the Central Intelligence Agency, said Giovanni Claudio Fava, who led a special inquiry. “They knew.” The report said that 11 European countries, including Britain, Italy and Germany, knew of the agency’s activities. The report, issued Tuesday in Brussels, offered new confirmation of the United States’ practice of so-called extraordinary renditions, in which suspects were abducted, then transported, with European complicity, to third countries where they might face harsh interrogation methods. (…) Mr. Fava asserted that his committee had obtained, from a confidential source, records of an informal meeting of European Union and NATO foreign ministers on Dec. 7, 2005, “confirming that member states had knowledge of the program of extraordinary rendition and secret prisons.” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was among the participants, it said.