EU States Complicit in CIA Torture Must Be Brought to Justice: Rights Group

WASHINGTON, December 11 (Sputnik) — European countries complicit in torture by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) must be investigated and held to account, Bill Bowring, President of the European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights (ELDH), told Sputnik Thursday.

"Those alleged to be responsible for complicity in committing serious crimes, i.e. torture should be brought to justice in their respective countries," Bowring told Sputnik.

He noted that in the United Kingdom some very high-ranking officials knew exactly what was going on.

"There must be serious investigations with a view to prosecution, at the very top," Bowring added.

According to Wednesday reports by The Guardian, Poland, Romania and Lithuania hosted "black sites," which were effectively torture chambers.

The newspaper went on to state that there is evidence that other European countries cooperated with the CIA in organizing covert rendition flights, including Britain, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Cyprus, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania.

"We all knew what the USA was doing in relation to torture and extraordinary rendition, and people like Dick Marty from the Council of Europe did great work exposing the complicity of European states. But it is very good now to have confirmation from such an authoritative US body," Bowring concluded.

On Tuesday, the US Senate Intelligence committee released a summary of the so-called CIA "torture report." The released extracts run to over 500 pages and provide a summary of a detailed study of controversial interrogation methods used by the CIA on alleged terror suspects following the 9/11 attacks in Washington and New York.