Rendition for Torture Submission to EU Parliament

international | crime and justice | news report

Saturday April 15, 2006 01:04

by Edward Horgan - PANA Peace and Neutrality Alliance

edward_horgan at hotmail dot com

085-1026631

Edward Horgan invited to address EU Parliament special committee investigating Torture Rendition

On 20th April, while many are enjoying Easter holidays, Edward Horgan will be making a significant submission to the European Parliament special committee investigating Extraordinary Rendition for Torture, in Brussels. He has been invited by the committee to make a special presentation focusing on the use of Shannon airport for rendering prisoners for torture and the Irish Government's complicity in this torture process.

Torture victims may be murdered to conceal US crimes of torture –
Ed Horgan to address European Parliament committee on extraordinary renditions

Hundreds of prisoners in the United States’ worldwide network of torture centres are in imminent danger of summary execution in order to conceal the crimes of torture that the US and its allies have committed against them. Many may already have been killed following the recent revelation that the CIA has been operating clandestine ‘black sites’ in Eastern Europe. These are undocumented prisoners in a modern equivalent of Stalin’s gulags, whose identity and whereabouts is unknown to anyone outside the new gulags.

This risk that torture victims will be murdered without further ado is the most pressing concern that former UN military peacekeeper Edward Horgan will express when he addresses a committee of the European Parliament in Brussels on 20 April.

Horgan is a former Commandant in the Irish army, who has served as UN military peacekeeper in conflicts in Cyprus and Egypt, and later as civilian UN Volunteer in Bosnia, East Timor and elsewhere. He is currently manager of the Centre for Care of Survivors of Torture, at SPIRASI in Dublin. The committee he will address is officially known as the “Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners”, or “TDIP Temporary Committee”. Time will tell what ‘temporary’ means. See http://www.europarl.eu.int/comparl/tempcom/tdip/default...n.htm for details.

Horgan’s meticulous documentation provides as overwhelming prima facie evidence that Shannon Airport has been used to facilitate the unlawful killing of over 100,000 people in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the abduction of hundreds of civilians for torture under the US’ programme of ‘extraordinary rendition’. Attachments to the report include a dossier of flight logs that show that CIA aircraft have landed at Shannon no fewer than 100 times. Horgan estimates that approximately 100 victims of the extraordinary rendition programme have transited at Shannon.

According to Horgan, Irish government ministers, military intelligence and members of the Garda Síochána must have been aware of the use of Shannon Airport to facilitate crimes of torture for several years. Recent statements from Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern fall short of an unequivocal denial of allegations that torture victims have transited at Shannon on their way to or from the internment camp at Guantánamo Bay.

Instead of acting to secure conclusive proof of crimes of torture, gardaí and airport security staff have consistently harrassed and arrested conscientious citizens who have sought to investigate and intervene, including Horgan himself on numerous occasions.

Thus, Horgan points out, the Irish government has deployed resources to facilitate torture, in direct contravention of the UN Convention against Torture, and of Irish criminal law.

For further information and interviews, please contact Edward Horgan:
Mobile: 085 102 6631. E-mail: edward.horgan@ul.ie

A copy of the submission will be posted on the PANA website on the evening of 20 April 2006.
The submission includes a thirty three page document backed up by forty five separate attachments, which include detailed flight logs of CIA Rendition planes landing details at Shannon airport and at other European and non-European airports including Guantanamo. This submission provides overwhelming circumstantial evidence that prisoners were transported through Shannon airport, and also points the finger at Irish Government ministers and the Irish police force for knowingly failing to prevent Shannon airport being used for torture purposes, in contravention of International laws and Irish criminal laws.
In addition Horgan states his belief that the Irish Army Director of Intelligence has been aware that Shannon airport has been used for transporting prisoners for torture, and the likelihood that this army officer would have informed key government ministers of this fact, including the Ministers for Defence and Justice.