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Lithuanian president announces investigation into CIA secret prison
The president of Lithuania called for an official investigation Tuesday into an ABC News.com exclusive report in August that the CIA housed a secret prison for al Qaida suspects in Lithuania for more than a year beginning in 2004.
"If this is true," President Dalia Grybauskaite said, "Lithuania has to clean up, accept responsibility, apologize, and promise that it will never happen again."
At a press conference with the Council of Europe Human Rights Commission, Grybauskaite announced the investigation after it was clear a previous attempt by the Lithuanian Parliament was insufficient, according to a Council of Europe official.
In August, ABC News reported that the CIA built a secret prison in a residential section of Vilnius from September 2004 through November 2005. The CIA used the prison to detain and interrogate top level al Qaida prisoners captured around the world after 9/11. Lithuania was the only unknown European country to house so called "black sites," after the identities of Poland and Romania were reported in late 2005 by the Washington Post and ABC News' Brian Ross.