Friday, 25 November 2005MADRID (Reuters) - The Spanish government, responding to allegations that CIA planes used a Spanish airport as a base to transport Islamic terrorism suspects, said on Thursday it was convinced U.S. aircraft had broken no law.
However, it said it would step up checks on civilian planes that flew over or stopped in Spanish territory to make sure they were "exclusively civilian" flights.
Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos testified to a parliamentary committee on the flights after news reports about them prompted opposition parties to demand information from the government.
The reports said that the U.S. intelligence agency had used Son Sant Joan airport on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca as a base for transporting Islamic terrorism suspects from early 2004 to early 2005.
"The government is convinced, based on the result of the investigation carried out, that all the stops made in the framework of the Defence Cooperation Agreement between Spain and the United States, as well as stops by civilian planes ... were made in accordance with the law," Moratinos said.
Spain had sought and obtained the guarantee of U.S. authorities that, as far as they knew, there had been no violation of Spanish laws, he said.
However, he said the government would immediately step up checks on civilian aircraft that flew over or stopped in Spanish territory to make sure they were civilian flights. If necessary, the government would implement more exhaustive checks inside aircraft, he said.
Local prosecutors investigated the Mallorca stops but shelved the investigation because they could find no evidence of a crime, Moratinos said.
Prosecutors had also launched an investigation of stops by U.S. planes in the Canary Islands, Moratinos said. He said these included flights by U.S. forces, civilian flights and U.S. flights to repatriate migrants to Liberia and Nigeria.
The U.S. Ambassador to Spain, Eduardo Aguirre, said last week that the flights had not broken Spanish law.
The Washington Post reported this month that the CIA had been holding and interrogating al Qaeda captives at a secret facility in eastern Europe as part of a covert prison system established after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Reuters via swissinfo |
Friday, 25 November 2005
swissinfo.org
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