This article is from page 3 of the 2008-03-18 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 3 JPG
SHANNON International Airport has come under fire from Amnesty International, which has outlined how the Clare airport played its role in the extraordinary rendition of a Yemeni man.
The human rights organisation de- tailed how a plane, which transport- ed Khaled al-Maqtari from Baghdad where he was “arrested” to Kabul to a CIA “black site” prison, was refu- elled in Shannon just hours before.
Mr al-Magtari was held without charge in secret CIA prisons for over two and a half years.
Amnesty International Irish Section Executive Director Colm O’Gorman said, “There can no longer be any doubt that Shannon is being used by those involved in kidnapping and torture, dressed up as part of a war OE uKOe
“After nine days of interrogation in Abu Ghraib (Baghdad), Khaled al-Maqtari was taken by plane to a secret CIA detention facility in Af-
ghanistan, where he was held for a further three months. Flight records obtained by Amnesty International corroborated that a jet operated by a CIA front company left Baghdad International Airport nine days af- ter his arrest, heading for Khwaja Rawash airport in Kabul.
“This same jet, registered at the time as N379P, had left Shannon Airport on 20 January 2004 en route to Baghdad where it collected Mr al- Maatari,’ Mr O’Gorman said.
“In essence, Shannon was used as
a refuelling stop by the individuals who ‘disappeared’ Mr al-Maatari to Kabul. It is clear that Ireland serves as a Staging area for these kinds of operations, which constitute some of the worst kinds of human rights abuses,” he said.
Amnesty International called in the Irish Government to put in place a system to monitor flights through Shannon and a regime of inspections to ensure that Ireland was not being used to facilitate kidnapping and tor- ture.
A spokesperson for the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern said the Government was totally opposed to the practice of extraordinary ren- eb TaCeyen
The Government said it was satis- fied with specific assurances from the US authorities, including from US President George W Bush and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, that no prisoners had been trans- ferred through Irish airports, nor would they be without Irish Govern- ment permission.