1.04.2007
Deep in Le Carré Country, the Remote Polish Airport at Heart of CIA Flights Row (Guardina.co.uk)
Former director tells how planes were met by vehicles from nearby military base
Nicholas Watt in Szymany
Thursday January 4, 2007
The Guardian
Tucked away at the end of a pot-holed country lane which runs through a dense forest, Szymany airport would be the perfect setting for a John Le Carré novel. A shabby control tower looks out over a long runway which appears slightly out of place next to a modest terminal building.
Until last year, when it was mothballed in a row over funding, the former Warsaw Pact military airbase enjoyed a brief renaissance as a regional airport for tourists visiting the picturesque Warminsko Mazurskie area of north-eastern Poland. German tourists on hunting trips, or sailors holidaying on the nearby lakes, were the typical passengers who flew into Szymany on small propeller planes.
But the tranquillity of the airport, which is now disturbed by no more than the sound of migratory birds heading for the lakes, belies its place at the centre of an international row about CIA "rendition flights" of terror suspects. Human rights activists and MEPs investigating the flights have long suspected that many detainees passed through Szymany airport on their way to a secret US detention centre at the nearby Stare Kiejkuty military base.
These suspicions were recently hardened when the airport's former director confirmed that numerous alleged CIA flights touched down at Szymany, where they were met by military vehicles from Stare Kiejkuty. The evidence from Mariola Przewlocka, who was sacked from her job last year for "political reasons", prompted MEPs to make the first official claim that terror suspects may have been detained on EU soil.
(More ... Gyardian Unlimited > Politics > Special Reports)
Nicholas Watt in Szymany
Thursday January 4, 2007
The Guardian
Tucked away at the end of a pot-holed country lane which runs through a dense forest, Szymany airport would be the perfect setting for a John Le Carré novel. A shabby control tower looks out over a long runway which appears slightly out of place next to a modest terminal building.
Until last year, when it was mothballed in a row over funding, the former Warsaw Pact military airbase enjoyed a brief renaissance as a regional airport for tourists visiting the picturesque Warminsko Mazurskie area of north-eastern Poland. German tourists on hunting trips, or sailors holidaying on the nearby lakes, were the typical passengers who flew into Szymany on small propeller planes.
But the tranquillity of the airport, which is now disturbed by no more than the sound of migratory birds heading for the lakes, belies its place at the centre of an international row about CIA "rendition flights" of terror suspects. Human rights activists and MEPs investigating the flights have long suspected that many detainees passed through Szymany airport on their way to a secret US detention centre at the nearby Stare Kiejkuty military base.
These suspicions were recently hardened when the airport's former director confirmed that numerous alleged CIA flights touched down at Szymany, where they were met by military vehicles from Stare Kiejkuty. The evidence from Mariola Przewlocka, who was sacked from her job last year for "political reasons", prompted MEPs to make the first official claim that terror suspects may have been detained on EU soil.
(More ... Gyardian Unlimited > Politics > Special Reports)
Labels: CIA, Extraordinary Rendition, Guardian
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