Amnesty uncovers U.S. prisoner rendition program

I'll have more on this soon, when I do a fuller post on rendition and torture, but I wanted to link to this important story. According to the BBC, Amnesty International has released a report that "provides detailed accounts of the experiences of three Yemeni men who claim to have been held in at least four different secret US prisons between October 2003 and May 2005".

Amnesty also claims to have "records of nearly 1,000 flights, mostly using European airspace, which were made by planes that appear to have been permanently operated by the CIA through front companies" and "records of about 600 other flights made by planes confirmed as having been used at least temporarily by the CIA" -- likely for the purposes of transporting prisoners covertly "to countries where they have faced torture or ill-treatment".

In addition, also according to the BBC, "European governments were almost certainly aware of the CIA's secret prisoner flights via European airspace or airports". See also here.

And consider this: "Poland has announced a formal inquiry into claims that the US CIA operated secret prisons or interrogation centres on its territory." Remember, though, that Poland is a key member of Bush's "coalition of the willing". This inquiry could turn out to be a farce.

Stay tuned.