Just another piece of 'military liaison?'
On any other day it would have been the lead story.
But yesterday’s news day was no ordinary day. The conviction of 23 CIA operatives by the still independent judiciary in Silvio Berlusconi’s Italy was a remarkable first.
The CIA staff who included the Milan station chief (What is a secondary European city doing with a CIA station chief at all?) marked a major step in the struggle to bring to justice those responsible for the rendition and torture of suspects in the aftermath of 9/11.
The case involved the seizure of a Muslim cleric on the streets of Milan and his rendition to a ‘third country’ for interrogation, where he claims he was tortured.
None of the convicted CIA people is ever likely to serve the five years in jail to which they have been sentenced (the station chief got eight years).
But the case itself must be bringing closer the day when the political leaders of the time, particularly in Europe and America, will be questioned and perhaps themselves brought before the International Court in the Haig.
My Paris informant identified fears of such investigations against Tony Blair as another ingredient in President Sarkozi’s ‘deceleration’ of support for Mr Blair’s candidacy for the Presidency of Europe.
This brings me to the presence of a 22-seater Gulfstream jet at Birmingham Airport on October 2nd. N478GS was identified there last month by plane spotters.
This is a plane that, according to a report in the Guardian (November 1st) has previously been seen at Bagram military air base in Afghanistan, Shannon in Ireland, Prestwick in Scotland, and Stuttgart in Germany. There have been persistent allegations that the jet has been used for the ‘movement’ of prisoners.
Can we be assured that rendition is not still being practised? The MOD says of the Birmingham incident that the plane’s visit had nothing to do with ‘past allegations’.
They say it was engaged in ‘routine military liaison between allies’.
Isn’t that exactly what the rendition of suspects for torture in third countries could have been described as?