Brussels Report Backs Claims Of CIA Abuses

A CIA plane (file photo) (AFP) April 26, 2006 -- European Union investigators today said the CIA had "on several occasions" kidnapped and illegally detained terror suspects on EU territory and flown them to countries that use torture, a practice known as extraordinary rendition.

The findings are contained in the European Parliament's first interim report into the alleged CIA abuses.

The inquiry followed media reports and personal testimonies that U.S. intelligence officers interrogated Al-Qaeda suspects at secret prisons in Eastern Europe and transported some of them on secret flights via Europe following the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The author of the report, Giovanni Claudio Fava, said the CIA had made more than 1,000 undeclared flights over European territory since 2001, thereby violating an international treaty.

(Reuters, AP)