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CIA 'operated 400+ flights'
03/12/2005 20:48 - (SA)
Berlin - The German government has a list of at least 437 flights operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency in German airspace, the news magazine Der Spiegel claimed in its edition to be published on Sunday.
The number includes both movements by planes of the CIA spy agency in German airspace and landings at German airports, it says.
"Such planes could be used to transfer presumed terrorists and place them in secret locations," Der Spiegel writes.
The report comes on the eve of a visit to Germany by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The list was handed over by the national air navigation security agency at the request of the Left Party.
Der Spiegel says that in 2002 and 2003 two CIA aircraft alone accounted for 137 and 146 uses of German airspace or landings, chiefly at Frankfurt in the west, Berlin or the US base at Ramstein in western Germany.
Germany has the largest number of US bases in Europe.
In an interview published on Saturday in the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper the secretary general of the German branch of the human rights organisation Amnesty International claimed the German government knew of the CIA flights.
German government won't be asking for explanations
The United States have been accused since the beginning of last month of having operated since September 11, 2001 CIA flights using European airspace or airports carrying terrorism suspects to countries practising torture.
A British newspaper claimed on Thursday, on the basis of US civil aviation figures, that 96 flights had been recorded in Germany, 80 in Britain, 15 in the Czech Republic, two in France and one in Poland.
On Monday, Rice will be in Berlin to start a European tour during which she is likely to be questioned both about the flights and the alleged existence of US detention centres for Islamists in eastern Europe.
She has said she will give answers before embarking on her tour. On Tuesday she will meet Germany's new conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel.
However, the German government indicated on Friday that it would not be asking for explanations about the flights, not wanting to exercise "pressure".
Der Spiegel said the government was worried that the affair could prompt a fundamental debate about the use of German airspace by US planes for the war in Iraq and the basing of US troops in Germany.
Berlin has also been asked to inform the 46-member Council of Europe by February 21 what action it has undertaken in specific cases of "kidnappings" after being told about them, the magazine says.
Since June 2004 the foreign ministry has had a document from a German citizen of Lebanese origin, Khaled al-Masri, reporting ill-treatment aboard a CIA flight.
According to Der Spiegel the US authorities informally confirmed the "kidnapping" in early 2005.
- AFP
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