However, in 2008, USA Today quoted an unnamed Romanian official who claimed that the military portion of the airport contained three buildings which were strictly off-limits to Romanian officials but were frequented by US agents. One of the CIAs guinea pigs was Abu Zubaydah, a Saudi national captured in Pakistan in 2002. United States Coast Guard Is Operating Secret Floating Prisons In The Pacific Ocean! [1] A 2021 Associated Press news story defined black sites as "clandestine jails where prisoners generally are not charged with a crime and have no legal recourse, with no bail or court order. The scandal of secret CIA prisons exploded in February 2005, after several revelations in the Washington Post. [2] Black sites in China are also known as black jails. A jaw-dropping report from the NY Times exposes these prisons, dubbing them floating Guantnamos.. [15] Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz characterized the accusation as "libel", while Romania similarly said there was no evidence. He really didn't know all that much about what he was doing. [1] A 2021 Associated Press news story defined black sites as "clandestine jails where prisoners generally are not charged with a crime and have no legal recourse, with no bail or court order." Listen to music from Secret Floating Prisons. To quote the report, "At this stage of the investigations, there is no formal, irrefutable evidence of the existence of secret CIA detention centres in Romania, Poland or any other country. ", "United States of America / Below the radar: Secret flights to torture and 'disappearance', "Secret prisons: Obama's order to close 'black sites', "United States of America / Yemen: Secret Detention in CIA "Black Sites", "Developments in the British Indian Ocean Territory", "CIA interrogated suspects on Diego Garcia, says Colin Powell aide", "Terror suspects were interrogated on Diego Garcia, US official admits", "Source: US Used UK Isle for Interrogations", "Swiss intercept fax on secret CIA jails", "Swiss paper claims proofs of secret US torture camp", "Folter in Rumnien: Ex-Staatschef Iliescu gibt Existenz von CIA-Gefngnis zu", "Ukraine denies hosting secret CIA prisons", "Inside a 9/11 Mastermind's Interrogation", "Rights group: US won't cooperate with Polish probe of CIA prisons", "Lithuania pinpoints site of alleged secret CIA prison", "Lithuania investigates claim it ran secret prison", "Senate report 'proves Lithuania hosted CIA jail': detainee's lawyers", "Jail for sale: Lithuania to put former CIA black site up for auction", "Polish president admits Poland agreed to host secret CIA 'black site', "John Walker Lindh Profile: The case of the Taliban American", "Myers: Intelligence might have thwarted attacks", "CIA Torture Jet sold in attempted cover up", "Details of US 'torture by proxy flights' emerge", "US accused of holding terror suspects on prison ships", "Prison ships, torture claims, and missing detainees", "Revealed: the full story of the Guantanamo Britons The Observer's David Rose hears the Tipton Three give a harrowing account of their captivity in Cuba", "Transcript of interview of Andrea Mitchell, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Bill Bennett, John Harwood, Dana Priest and William Safire", "U.S. Faces Scrutiny Over Secret Prisons", "Nations Urged to Answer Prison Allegations", http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2005/11/28/1327488-ap.html, "The Black Sites; A rare look inside the C.I.A. [1][12] After denying the fact for years, Poland confirmed in 2014 that it has hosted black sites. Vans from a nearby intelligence base (Stare Kiejkuty) met the aircraft, stayed for a short while and then drove off. The communique described the detention of 23 Iraqi and Afghan captives at the airport. Jamie founded Listverse due to an insatiable desire to share fascinating, obscure, and bizarre facts. He is a fisherman from a coastal town in Ecuador and was having a particularly, economically, rough year and made a decision to take a job smuggling cocaine off of the coast of Ecuador. One of them stated that between 2002 and 2005 the CIA held terror suspects inside a military intelligence training base in Stare Kiejkuty in north-eastern Poland. It probably referred to a statement by controversial Senator and Great Romania party leader Corneliu Vadim Tudor.[137]. Despite protests in major Russian cities against the situation in Chechnya, Vladimir Putin, wanting to maintain good relations with Kadyrov, has denied that any abuses of homosexuals in Chechnya have occurred. CIA detainees were subjected to coercive interrogation techniques that had not been approved by the Department of Justice or had not been authorized by CIA Headquarters. Some media sources have noted her comments do not exclude the possibility of covert prison sites operated with the knowledge of the "host" nation,[19] or the possibility that promises by such "host" nations that they will refrain from torture may not be genuine. Since the 2012 launching of Operation Martillo, or hammer in Spanish, the Coast Guard has detained more than 2,700 people in international waters on suspicion of smuggling cocaine to Central America. So this guy, Arcentales, and another guy they're on a ship. During this period, there were several incidents of torture and prisoner abuse, though they were related to non-secret prisoners, and not the CIA-operated portion of the prison. Give us the quick thumbnail sketch of this one guy, in particular, Jhonny Arcentales, and how he ended up there? During the Egyptian Crisis (20112014) hundreds of protesters alleged that torture occurred at these black sites. [23] The Washington Post posited that McCarthy "had been probing allegations of criminal mistreatment by the CIA and its contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan", and became convinced that "CIA people had lied" in a meeting with US Senate staff in June 2005. Are they proud of this or are they a little bit wary of what's going on? Danner also provided excerpts of the ICRC report characterizing procedures used at the black sites, dubbed "an alternative set of procedures" by President Bush, and discussed whether they fit the definition of torture.[14]. [142][143][144] Panetta informed his fellow employees that the CIA would only use interrogation techniques authorized in the US Army interrogation manual, and that any individuals taken into custody by the CIA would only be held briefly, for the time necessary to transfer them to the custody of authorities in their home countries, or the custody of another US agency. The UN considered evidence presented by the Moroccan government as well as by Amnesty International. [12], In December 2002, The Washington Post reported that "the capture of al Qaeda leaders Ramzi bin al-Shibh in Pakistan, Omar al-Faruq in Indonesia, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in Kuwait and Muhammad al Darbi in Yemen were all partly the result of information gained during interrogations." Defense lawyers have challenged the practice in federal courts with no success. Other Democrats in Congress also made public statements of outrage about the destruction of the tapes, suggesting that a violation of law had occurred. secret floating prisons Purportedly sent by the Egyptian embassy in London to foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the document states that 23 Iraqi and Afghan citizens were interrogated at Mihail Koglniceanu base near Constana, Romania. On May 19, 2006, the United Nations Committee Against Torture (the U.N. body that monitors compliance with the UN Convention Against Torture) recommended that the United States cease holding detainees in secret prisons and stop the practice of rendering prisoners to countries where they are likely to be tortured. On March 15, 2009, Mark Danner provided a report in the New York Review of Books (with an abridged version in The New York Times) describing and commenting on the contents of the ICRC report. I havent heard a thing since on this floating prison claim. On December 28, 2006, the BBC reported that during 2003, a well-known CIA Gulfstream V aircraft implicated in extraordinary renditions, N379P, had on several occasions landed at the Polish airbase of Szymany. Makes me think it was a load of bs. In their report, they've also stated that a huge number of those people are held on ships that are known as "floating prisons". [22] McCarthy's lawyer, however, claimed that McCarthy "did not have access to the information she is accused of leaking". Data published by the newspaper confirmed that the CIA hid the most dangerous al-Qaeda terrorists in what are called Black Sites (Dark Places) located in . For the next 70 days, Mr. Arcentales and the other man he was detained with were held always chained by their ankle to the deck of a ship or to a cable running along one of these large Coast Guard or Navy ships for 70 days. Ultimately, 26 Americans (mostly suspected CIA agents) and nine Italians were indicted. Locals described seeing US contractors digging around the property, creating what they assumed was an underground complex beneath the main building. [125] Costa Pinto wrote a book about his investigation. Thailand denies the existence of any black sites in its territory, despite multiple reports describing the mysterious Detention Site Green and hinting that it may be located just outside of Bangkok or somewhere in the northern province of Udon Thani. The list of those thought to be held by the CIA includes suspected al-Qaeda members Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Nurjaman Riduan Isamuddin, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Abu Zubaydah. The accusation that several EU members may have allowed the United States to hold, imprison or torture detainees on their soil has been a subject of controversy in the European body, who announced in November 2005 that any country found to be complicit could lose their right to vote in the council.[105]. Chechnya is arguably the most homophobic area in Russia, with 95% of its population adhering to Orthodox (Sunni) Islam. [26], In a September 7, 2007, public address to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, rare for a sitting Director of Central Intelligence, General Michael Hayden praised the program of detaining and interrogating prisoners, and credited it with providing 70 percent of the National Intelligence Estimate on the threat to America released in July. The facility is operated by a Moroccan government unit known as the Directorate for the Surveillance of the Territory (DST). Yes exactly right, and we are going to have a hell of a time righting things. In an effort to staunch the . More than a year ago, there was a major earthquake in Ecuador that left families in dire economic straits. Reprieve uses international and domestic law as a tool to save lives, deliver justice and make the case for world-wide reform. The conditions of confinement for CIA detainees were harsher than the CIA had represented to policymakers and others. They are, verbatim from the unclassified summary report:[149], According to the report, at least 26 of the 119 prisoners (22%) held by the CIA were subsequently found by the CIA to have been improperly detained,[149] many having also experienced torture. Located at Djiboutis Ambouli International Airport is Camp Lemonnier, a US Naval Expeditionary Base. None of these prisoners can afford to pay for representation. [11] According to Danner, the report was marked "confidential" and was not previously made public before being made available to him. But a thing like this, it never leaves you.. In 2008, The Guardian reported that human rights organization Reprieve, which claimed that the US has admitted to holding at least 26,000 people in secret prisons, had discovered that the US was operating a fleet of "floating prisons" that span the globe. [49][50][51][52][53][54] A Geneva-based human rights group, SAM for Rights and Liberties called on the Emirati forces to close all its secret prisons being operated in Yemen. He was moved from ship to ship as these Coast Guard cutters went about their patrols, picking up more cocaine in the Pacific Ocean. [129][130], The future robustness of the highly secret investigation, in progress since 2008, may however be in some doubt. The Coast Guard has gotten away with this inhumane and horrific practice for years by claiming that logistics make it hard to get these people back. ; . Since then, the site has been used to train Lithuanias state security service. We don't have facilities here. duh In August 2018, the Royal Thai Army announced that another suspected Udon Thani black site, the former Ramasun Station, would be turned into a tourist attraction. "[116], On December 6, 2007, the CIA admitted that it had destroyed videotapes recordings of CIA interrogations of terrorism suspects involving harsh interrogation techniques, tapes which critics suggest may have documented the use of torture by the CIA, such as waterboarding. The argument by the Coast Guard and by federal prosecutors that these logistical delays are legitimate, as it's hard enough to get people back. He's called drug smuggling in Central America an existential threat to the United States. Coast guard cutters on missions to interdict suspected drug smugglers in international waters have become de facto prisons for detainees. Whatever happened to Johnny Arcentales? From secret black site prisonsoperating in Chicagowith no due process, to midnight raids in which babies faces are blown off by police grenades, attempting to stop Americans from self-medicating has proven to be a disastrous failure. The guard refuses, but brings the Warden to Red who tells him that within 12 hours an inmate named Luther Braxton will break out of his cell and "steal a classified intelligence packet that . Your email address will not be published. detention and torture or about hosting prisons. [84], After the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, the president of Poland between 1995 and 2005, Alexander Kwasniewski, admitted that he had agreed to host a secret CIA black site in Poland, but that activities were to be carried out in accordance to Polish law. [14][15], A 2022 United Press International story cited former Polish President Aleksander Kwaniewski as admitting in 2014 that his country had provided a quiet location for the CIA to operate a black site to torture accused Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists.[16]. [135] The preliminary report declared that it was "highly unlikely that European governments, or at least their intelligence services, were unaware" of the CIA kidnapping of a "hundred" persons on European territory and their subsequent rendition to countries where they may be tortured. The Ashland houses 500 US Marines onboard. Now Donald Trump's chief of staff, General John Kelly, he played a key role in expanding the reach of the Coast Guard in this way. They helped us stop a planned strike on a U.S. Marine camp in Djibouti, and to prevent a planned attack on the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, and to foil a plot to hijack passenger planes and to fly them into Heathrow Airport and London's Canary Wharf. The U.S. government does not provide information about the operation of black sites, and for a period of time did not provide information about the existence of black sites. When they capture these boats, the people on the boatswho are often indentured servants to drug lords trying to feed their familiesare brought aboard these floating prisons and shackled to the deck outside, in the elements. See all of the areas of the palace that are not open to the public and even cross the infamous Bridge of Sighs. Katalyst said: "In an effort to staunch the flow of cocaine and other hard drugs from South America to Central America and points north, Coast Guard cutters have been deployed farther and farther from the shore in the Pacific Ocean" Wait, you mean the wall won't stop this? [136], On June 27, 2007, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe voted on Resolution 1562 and Recommendation 1801 backing the conclusions of the report by Dick Marty. [115], In an October 30, 2007, address to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Hayden defended the agency's interrogation methods, saying, "Our programs are as lawful as they are valuable." document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Jim Chalmers has been spotted de-stressing after a horrible week in which he was called an 'L-plate' treasurer and publicly pulled up by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese over tax reform plans.. Dr . Next up in 5. [128], In January 2012, Poland's Prosecutor General's office initiated investigative proceedings against Zbigniew Siemitkowski, the former Polish intelligence chief. The Secret Life of Prisons tells the hidden stories from behind bars. Right now, a suspected terrorist is sitting in the bowels of a U.S. Navy warship somewhere between the Mediterranean Sea and Washington, D.C. Ahmed Abu Khattala, the alleged leader . In today's insane new prison vide. But some of it may be going to other markets, to European markets, to Australian markets or elsewhere. A new viral video reveals what Mormon teens are doing to get around the "no sex" rule: It's penetration without "thrusting," an act known as "soaking" and its hashtag has some 25.5 . It's out of their control after that, but we're arresting people in international waters, often on foreign boats, thousands of miles from the United States. Furthermore, the CIA apparently financially assists and directs the jails in these countries. Just when you think that youve heard the worst, this administration tops it. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. [149] In at least six cases, the CIA used torture on suspects before evaluating whether they would be willing to cooperate. This area requires 1775 to 2000 to enter. Somebody could be put on a plane and brought back to the United States. [107], An August 13, 2007, story by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker reported that the CIA has operated "black site" secret prisons by the direct presidential order of George W. Bush since shortly after 9/11, and that extreme psychological interrogation measures based at least partially on the Vietnam-era Phoenix Program were used on detainees. [58], Some reported sites in Egypt, Libya and Morocco,[59][60] as well as Djibouti. [100] "The Post has not identified the East European countries involved in the secret program at the request of senior U.S. officials who argued that the disclosure could disrupt counter-terrorism efforts".[102]. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Required fields are marked *. Very often, detainees are brought to port in one of these cutters, then placed in a hidden room in a helicopter hangar or in a room below deck andhidden there for the day while the Coast Guard cutter refuels or the Coast Guard crew get a bit of a break and then are brought back out to sea.". [48] Additionally, Camp Bucca (near Umm Qasr) and Camp Cropper (near the Baghdad International Airport) were reported. The report defines extraordinary renditions as instances where "an individual suspected of involvement in terrorism is illegally abducted, arrested and/or transferred into the custody of US officials and/or transported to another country for interrogation which, in the majority of cases involves incommunicado detention and torture".UK officials have further denied any claims and many investing officials agree to it that UK was not involved in the And for the next 70 days, he was held aboard a series of Coast Guard cutters and Navy frigates as he was moved around the Pacific Ocean. In a 20-minute question-and-answer session with the audience, Hayden disputed assertions that the CIA has used waterboarding, stress positions, hypothermia and dogs to interrogate suspectsall techniques that have been broadly criticized. The Coast Guard usually has a reputation for being the good guys out there rescuing people, apprehending bad guys. US News: The US is operating 'floating prisons' to house those arrested in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who claim there has been an at. She was known to the male detainees as "Prisoner 650." 8. Who owns most of the prisons in America? The CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program was inherently unsustainable and had effectively ended by 2006 due to unauthorized press disclosures, reduced cooperation from other nations, and legal and oversight concerns. In April 2009, CIA director Leon Panetta announced that the "CIA no longer operates detention facilities or black sites", in a letter to staff and that "[r]emaining sites would be decommissioned". This is a practice of detention that until now hasn't really been known. They also said that they were threatened and told not to speak publicly about what had happened to them. Yes, the Coast Guard is actively hiding its prisoners so it can essentially keep them at sea indefinitely. However, it was the revelations of The Washington Post, in a November 2, 2005, article, that would start the scandal. [9] The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported details of black site practices to the US government in early 2007,[10] and the contents of that report became public in March 2009. The CIA impeded effective White House oversight and decision-making. [63] The United States has refused to cooperate with a Polish investigation into the matter, according to the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. who pays the tax on non qualified 529 distributions . It is. For full details, see the section below on the media and investigative history. The site was closed in December 2002. Do you people actually believe all of this idiotic crap? The total number of ghost detainees is presumed to be at least one hundred, although the precise number cannot be determined because fewer than 10% have been charged or convicted. [134] On December 13, 2005, Marty, investigating illegal CIA activity in Europe on behalf of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, reported evidence that "individuals had been abducted and transferred to other countries without respect for any legal standards". She was allegedly detained for five years at Bagram with her children; she was the only female prisoner. It has as objective to determine if the plane was used to transport CIA prisoners to Guantanamo Bay detainment camp and if the French authorities had knowledge of this stop. securities and exchange commission purpose; conservative party of canada ethics violations; hcpss staff dress code; role allocation definition sociology The CIA marginalized and ignored numerous internal critiques, criticisms, and objections concerning the operation and management of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program. The Salt Pit, also known as Cobalt, is a former brick factory located north of Kabul in Afghanistan. He describes the experience of feeling like he really might disappear. In 2015, the airport managed 2,227 flights involving over 63,000 passengers. So, Johnny Arcentales and the other men that I've spoken to know, they're not thinking about where these drugs are going. [37] Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has denied these reports.[38][39][40][41]. [43], In Afghanistan, the prison at Bagram Air Base was initially housed in an abandoned brickmaking factory outside Kabul known as the "Salt Pit",[44] but later moved to the base some time after a young Afghan died of hypothermia after being stripped naked and left chained to a floor. He was brought to the United States, charged criminally under drug trafficking laws and was sentenced to 10 years to a decade in federal prison. 1,3 . secret floating prisons. All of this horrific torture and inhumane treatment is done under the guise of protecting Americans. As per the former detainees, survivors, and witnesses, Emirati forces operating in Yemen run illegal detention centers in the south of the country. Log into your account. A fax intercepted by the Onyx Swiss interception system, from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry to its London embassy, stated that 23 prisoners were clandestinely interrogated by the U.S. at the base. At 3 a.m. on February 5, 2021, Aliou Cand, a sturdy, shy twenty-eight-year-old migrant from Guinea-Bissau, arrived at the prison. The wide open seas must be convenient to dump the bodies/dispose of the evidence.