| Secret CIA prison likely built at Lithuanian horse school — TV |
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19/11/2009 10:57 (82 Day 11:40 minutes ago) | |||||
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The FINANCIAL -- According to RIA Novosti, a secret CIA prison was probably located on the territory of an exclusive horse riding school near Vilnius, ABC News said on its website on November 19, citing a former Lithuanian government official.
ABC News reported in mid-August that Lithuania, along with Poland and Romania, had a secret CIA prison on its territory, where suspected al-Qaeda terrorists were secretly kept and interrogated. The precise site had not been confirmed until now. Thailand, Romania, Poland, Morocco, and Afghanistan have also been identified as countries that housed secret prisons.
"The activities in that prison were illegal," said John Sifton, whose company investigates human rights abuses. "They included various forms of torture, including sleep deprivation, forced standing, painful stress positions."
Lithuania apparently agreed to host the prison after the then president George Bush pledged support for Lithuania's NATO bid during his visit to the country in 2002.
"The new members of NATO were so grateful for the U.S. role in getting them into that organization that they would do anything the U.S. asked for during that period," said Richard Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism official.
"They were eager to please and eager to be cooperative on security and on intelligence matters," he added.
Official Lithuanian representatives provided the U.S. TV channel with documents on the prison's construction.
In March 2004, a horse-riding facility in the forest 20 km northeast of the city center of Vilnius, was bought by Elite, LLC, a now-defunct company registered in Delaware, Panama and Washington, D.C.
The construction continued for several months, with prefabricated elements apparently flown from outside Lithuania.
Local residents say they saw large amounts of earth being excavated during the presumable construction period. Some locals say those who were looking for work at the construction site were turned away by English-speaking guards. The prison apparently opened in September 2004.
Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite called for an investigation after first reports on the secret prison were made public in August.
"If this is true, Lithuania has to clean up, accept responsibility, apologize, and promise it will never happen again" she said. She however turned down the TV channel's interview offer after the prison's location was established.
The CIA also declined to comment on the report.
"The CIA's terrorist interrogation program is over. This agency does not discuss publicly where detention facilities may or may not have been," a CIA spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, said.
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