Foreign Correspondence

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Investigation finds Lithuania had secret CIA jails
VILNIUS
Tue Dec 22, 2009 10:54am EST

* CIA goes hiring in heart of Arab America Fri, Nov 27 2009
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5AQ2N220091127
* Lithuania parliament to probe CIA jail allegations Thu, Nov 5 2009
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5A42QU20091105

VILNIUS (Reuters) - The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ran a secret prison in Lithuania
where al Qaeda suspects may have been held, a parliamentary probe in the Baltic state found on Tuesday.

The head of Lithuania's domestic intelligence agency has already resigned as speculation about secret jails has intensified.

U.S. broadcaster ABC News reported in August that Lithuania was the third
European country, after Poland and Romania, believed to host secret CIA jails

Some CIA staff are reported to have said the use of overseas detention centres was designed to circumvent U.S. law.

Arvydas Anusauskas, the head of parliament's national security and defense committee, said the
investigation found Lithuanian intelligence opened two detention centres in cooperation with the CIA.

"There were facilities, there were possibilities, there were (CIA) planes, though we can't know what was on board
... Therefore such a possibility exists," he said, when asked whether any CIA detainees were held in Lithuania.

Top officials were not informed about the jails, and there was no political approval, he said.

Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said it was "a matter of great concern" that such infrastructure
existed and that it could be possible to detain suspected terrorists without government control.

In a statement, he said he expected good relations with the United States to continue, but that a strategic partnership could
not be an excuse for "Soviet methods, ignoring civilian control of the special services and in breach of existing laws."

ABC News said a secret CIA prison operated near Vilnius airport from early 2004 to
late 2005 and that CIA planes flew into Lithuania with top level al Qaeda suspects.

Anusauskas told a news conference that CIA flights entered Lithuania but were
not inspected, and it had not been possible to determine who had been on board.

The investigation was the second into the secret jail allegations, demanded
by President Dalia Grybauskaite after an earlier probe found no evidence.

"It (the investigation) only proves suspicions she had for some time that there were premises designed for detention and
there were flights which could have been used for transporting prisoners," said the president's spokesman, Linas Balsys.

"The president has no doubts that bilateral Lithuania-U.S. relationship cannot be overshadowed by these conclusions."

Last week, Grybauskaite said she had ordered the recall of Lithuania's ambassador to Georgia,
Mecys Llaurinkus, who led the state security department from June 1998 until April 2004.

The investigation found that five planes linked to the CIA landed in Lithuania in 2003-2006,
and that domestic intelligence officials prevented customs and border guards inspecting them.

The U.S. Embassy in Vilnius declined to comment, saying it was U.S. policy not to comment on intelligence matters.

(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BL2EB20091222

For those interested in more see 'blueness', Daily Kos .. here is a little ..

Adamkus, the denier, served as Lithuania’s president during the period that his nation cooperated with the CIA, from 1998 through 2003, and again from 2004 to 2009.

Adamkus exiled himself from Lithuania for 54 years, from 1944 until 1998. During most of that time he lived in the United States, where he served in military intelligence in the US Army, and was later appointed to a high position in the Environmental Protection Agency by President Ronald Reagan. Adamkus was long a Republican Party activist.

When he returned to Lithuania, in order to run for president, there was some question as to whether Adamkus was even eligible for the office, since his 50-plus years abroad didn’t seem to fulfill the necessary residency requirements. However, a compliant court swept such objections aside, Adamkus trotted down to the US embassy in Vilnius to renounce his US citizenship, and the job was his.

Adamkus’ year away from the presidency was occasioned by the victory of former Communist and unreconstructed lefty Rolandas Paksas, who unexpectedly defeated Adamkus when the latter sought re-election in 2003. Paksas spent but a year as president before he was impeached and removed from office, after having been accused of being too cozy with the Russians. In the subsequent election to replace him, Adamkus returned to the presidency.

In the wake of the Seimas report, Paksas now asserts that his impeachment was orchestrated by the US, because he balked at the notion of siting secret CIA prisons in his country.

“When I was president, I knew that there were people who wanted to bring terror suspects to Lithuania. I think that my principal disagreement to do this led to the subsequent anti-presidential campaign and impeachment,” Paksas says.

Paksas said that in spring 2003, the then-head of Lithuania’s State Security Department, Megys Laurinkus, asked him if it were possible to bring some US terror suspects to the country unofficially, Kommersant newspaper reports. In doing so, Laurinkus hinted that a positive answer would help foreign partners.

Paksas said he refused to agree. Half a year later, he was accused of a tight connection with a Russian entrepreneur, Yury Borisov, and illegally granting him Lithuanian citizenship in exchange for sponsorship of his presidential campaign. In April 2004 the country’s parliament voted for President Paksas’ impeachment.

Megys Laurinkus confirms the fact of his conversation with Rolandas Paksas.

“I informed Mr. Paksas about the present situation and about the possibility
of such a request which could be received by Lithuania,” he said.

However, Laurinkus now claims his request was “hypothetical.”

Lithuania had previously opened two inquiries into the prison allegations, but both times legislators concluded there was no evidence.

However, this past August, ABC News filed an unusually detailed report asserting that the prisons were fact, and that Lithuania had agreed to host them “because it wanted better relations with the US.” George II in 2004 was supporting Lithuania’s bid to join NATO; “[t]he new members of NATO were so grateful for the US role in getting them into that organization,” says former counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, “that they would do anything the US asked for during that period.”

Then, in October of last year, President Grybauskaite said she had “indirect suspicions” that the ABC report might be true, and urged parliament to investigate more thoroughly.

Former president Adamkus, today a denier, stated last November that “if this actually did occur, and it is grounded with proof, we have to apologize to the international community that something like this went down in Lithuania. And those who did it in my eyes are criminals.”

Dainius Zalimas, a legal adviser to the Lithuanian Defense Ministry, said the existence of a covert prison would violate both Lithuanian statutes and international human rights conventions that the government signed. If firm evidence is gathered by the Parliament, he said, prosecutors would be obliged to open a case and could target both Lithuanian and US officials. ”From a legal point of view, it would mean that Lithuania, along with the United States, was contributing to quite serious violations of human rights,” said Zalimas.

It is this sort of prosecution that President Grybauskaite seemed Wednesday to urge upon her nation’s prosecutors.

The Seimas inquiry, perhaps taking its cue from various feckless US Congressional investigations, did not possess subpoena power, and was not empowered to pursue any mendacious witnesses on perjury charges. Nonetheless, it interviewed some 50 people, including former presidents Adamkus and Paksas, and concluded that both the black sites and “a logistics system for secret detention existed.”
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/1/17/825688/-This-Never-Happened

Much more inside ..