EU nations censured over CIA torture flights

The European Parliament has approved a report admonishing 15 European countries and Turkey for helping the CIA transport terrorism suspects held in secret or for failing to cooperate in the parliament's investigation of the practice. The legislative body for the European Union's 27 countries said many member states turned a blind eye to the CIA-operated flights carrying prisoners who were subjected to "incommunicado detention and torture" during interrogations, violating EU human rights standards. "We have opened up a closed door and there is even more behind this," said parliament member Claudio Fava, an Italian Socialist who drafted the report. The parliament criticized the CIA renditions, an extralegal tactic by which alleged terrorists were abducted and interrogated at secret sites overseas, "as an illegal instrument used by the USA in the fight against terrorism" and condemned the "acceptance and concealing of the practices by the secret services and governmental authorities of certain European countries." The parliament deleted some of the toughest parts of the report, including a call for sanctions against some countries for human rights violations. It softened criticisms of some governments, including those of Britain, Germany and Spain, after intense lobbying from those states. Parliament member Jas Gawronski of Italy criticized the final report as "a blanket condemnation of the secret services" and said it was "predicated on the assumption that there is one chief guilty party and that is the USA."