Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal News Blogs -> JURIST - The Paper Chase

Legal News

: JURIST - The Paper Chase

Spain aided US rendition flights: report

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The Spanish Foreign Ministry expressly allowed the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to use Spanish resources in transporting terror suspects to Guantanamo Bay, according to a 2002 internal Foreign Ministry memorandum released by Madrid's El Pais newspaper on Sunday. According to the document, an official for the ministry granted a CIA request to allow the US to use Spanish air space and military bases for flights between Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. The Ministry, now under new leadership since the government of conservative Prime Minister José María Aznar was replaced in 2004 by that of socialist Rodríguez Zapatero, said it would investigate whether the country had actually granted the permission. The Spanish government has previously conceded that CIA flights may have stopped on its soil, but denied that it had granted permission for such planes to transport prisoners. Spain made a similar pledge to investigate extraordinary rendition flights that may have passed through the country in 2005 after the European Union (EU) threatened it with sanctions. At the time, Spain denied knowledge of any such flights.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on December 01, 2008 (boomark / email).