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THE EUROPEAN COURT of Human Rights has, for the first time ever, held a European state to account for its involvement in the CIA’s detention and rendition programme in a case that is linked to Shannon Airport.
The European Court of Human Rights held unanimously today that the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (Macedonia) was responsible for the unlawful detention, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment of German national, Khaled El-Masri.
The court also found Macedonia responsible for El-Masri’s transfer out of Macedonia to locations where Amnesty International Ireland today said he “suffered further serious violations of his human rights”.
It has emerged that the plane used by the CIA to transfer the man landed at Shannon Airport on 17 January 2004 on its way to pick him up in the Macedonian capital of Skopje.
Colm O’Gorman, Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland, said this judgement is an “important step towards accountability for European complicity in rendition and torture”.
But Macedonia is not alone. Many other European governments colluded with, and in the case of Ireland facilitated, the United States to abduct, transfer, ‘disappear’ and torture people in the course of rendition operations.
“The Irish Government knew that the CIA used Shannon Airport as part of their renditions operations,” O’Gorman said. “The plane used by the CIA to take Mr El-Masri out of Macedonia, to be tortured in a US-run prison in Kabul, came via Shannon.”
Today Amnesty International Ireland called for a full, independent investigation into the use of Shannon Airport to support CIA rendition operations.
In December 2003, the Macedonian authorities arrested El-Masri, who is of Lebanese descent, after he entered Macedonia from Serbia. They held him until January when they handed him over to CIA agents who then transferred him to a detention facility in Afghanistan.
There he was held unlawfully in secret, not charged with any crime and his detention was not subject to judicial review, Amnesty said.
He did not have access to a lawyer and his whereabouts were not acknowledged. While in Afghanistan he was subjected to torture and other ill treatment. In May 2004 El-Masri was put on a plane and flown to Albania where he was released.
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She got out easy enough but getting back into Trump’s America now might be a little tricker.
@winston smith: won’t be a problem, Trump likes grabbing pussys
@winston smith: President Trump has no problem with people entering USA in the proper legal manner and applying for a Visa.
@Steve Austin: is that why his travel bans have been so successful, bit like his businesses. Can you give me a Hell ya
@winston smith: I’ll take “what are feet for for 400 please”
@Steve Austin: is that why he signed an executive order preventing people who went through the proper channels from entering the US?
@Steve Austin: but people have a problem entering trumps America that’s why tourism is down bigly
I remember that Nat Geo Documentary about the cats and dogs that found their way home?
Homeward Bound I believe it was called.
@Brian Guilfoyle: he whisked it. simple.
There’s a voice that keeps on calling me……
@MARK O ‘LEARY:… until tomorrow I’ll just keep moving on
I hope she kept a catalogue of her travels..there is a film in it somewhere.
Cats, like all wool-bearing animals, instinctively travel North, where it’s warmer, and they won’t be so stuffy.
@Harry the Cat: I heard cats originate from a much warmer and dryer climate. North African/ Middle East type climate. They hate the cold and they hate water and the wet. They don’t have a woolly coat just a thin fur. They also get very confused when they see snow, some are scared, some go chasing after falling snow flakes. They’re not at home in the snow at all.
@Jack Bowden: ever heard of the snow leopard or the Siberian tiger?
@Harry the Cat: Canada is a lot colder than California. You got that in reverse mate.
@Robert Cullen: yeah I’m talking about the domesticated short hair cat.
@Harry the Cat: How is it warmer in the north you plum
@Shane, Harry lives in South Africa.
Well that’s about the same amount of time you’d spend waiting to see a gyno in Cork..and whole story about a cat but nothing about the mismanaged services maternity services in Cork.
Nothing about managers and consultants only working Monday to Friday ( because we all know, babies born over the weekend are a nuisance), nothing about their enormous salaries for this 9-5 job? nothing about overworked nurses trying to deal with the huge amount of babies to be born. Nope. Nothing.
@jenni: what the actual f?
@Damocles: Think it’s called reality on this small benighted island…..
@Kerry Blake: it’s a puff piece about a cat. Times and places.
That’s all well and good Jenni but it doesn’t explain how the cat got to Canada.
Ryan Air of course!
I’d hazard a guess she walked or possibly jumped into the back of a pick up truck for warmth
‘Adobted’ by another family that moved to Canada?
Somebody knows.
Ryan Air?
Probably walked
Cats are like that?
have your say