CIA torture scandal in Lithuania continues

This video is called CIA secret prison in Lithuania.

From the Canadian Press:

Rights groups, citing own evidence, call for Lithuania to reopen CIA prison investigation

By Liudas Dapkus (CP) – 2 hours ago

VILNIUS, Lithuania — Human rights groups have called on Lithuanian prosecutors to reopen a criminal probe into a secret CIA detention centre set up in the country, and a top national security lawmaker said Wednesday that investigators had failed to weigh all the evidence.

Prosecutors closed the case last week, citing a lack of evidence, but human rights groups Amnesty International and Reprieve slammed the decision, claiming they have evidence that the site was used to interrogate and torture terrorism suspects.

Arvydas Anusauskas, chairman of parliament’s national security committee, urged prosecutors to reopen the case and weigh information provided by the groups.

“Two international organizations claim they have solid proof of illegal activities in Lithuania. … I believe these sources could provide public or nonpublic testimony to Lithuanian officials,” he said after meeting with President Dalia Grybauskaite, who also suggested the case could be reopened if new evidence surfaced.

“Nobody is certain that new information will not emerge,” Anusauskas added.

A parliamentary probe in 2009 concluded that although Lithuania, a Baltic country in northeast Europe, provided two facilities to the CIA, there was no evidence the facilities ever held terrorism suspects.

Prosecutors launched their own investigation to determine whether any crimes had been committed, particularly by Lithuania’s top national security officials.

Julia Hall of Amnesty International said prosecutors’ decision to close the case was “premature.”

“By shuttering the investigation before all the evidence has been gathered and all lines of inquiry pursued, the prosecutor cuts off a process that had the potential to hold people accountable for serious human rights violations,” Hall said.

Reprieve said it had provided investigators with confidential information that Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian repeatedly tortured by U.S. investigators, had been secretly imprisoned in Lithuania between 2004 and 2006. The NGO also said it supplied a list of individuals who could provide testimony — including CIA officials, Lithuanian handlers, and eyewitnesses.

The parliamentary probe determined that Lithuania’s top national security agency, the State Security Department, had struck a deal with the CIA in 2002 to create secret “black site” prisons near Vilnius to interrogate terrorist suspects.

Lawmakers did, however, reveal that aircraft involved in transporting prisoners had entered Lithuanian airspace and landed in Vilnius, the country’s capital, on several occasions in 2002-2005.

Gulet Mohamed, a 19-year-old American citizen, returned to the US Friday after being tortured—apparently on Washington’s orders—at the hands of the regime in Kuwait: here.

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