Celstraf vanwege onthullen geheime CIA detentiecentra in Eu

Three journalists face prison for revealing existence of secret CIA prisons in Europe

Reporters Without Borders has appealed to the Swiss justice and defence ministers to drop complaints against three journalists who revealed the existence of secret CIA prisons in Europe.

In letters to the federal councillors, Justice Minister Christoph Blocher and Defence Minister Samuel Schmid, it has pointed out that the journalists only fulfilled their duty to report on a case of public interest.

Zurich-based weekly SonntagsBlick on 8 January this year reproduced a fax from the Egyptian foreign minister to his embassy in London, referring to the existence of secret CIA detention centres in Kosovo, Macedonia, Ukraine, Rumania and Bulgaria.

The case produced an outcry in Switzerland and worldwide and the country’s secret services were implicated in the leak of the confidential document. Romania and Bulgaria denied the allegations. The United States admitted the existence of flights chartered by the CIA over numerous European countries but not the existence of prisons.

A damning report from the Council of Europe condemned abuses committed by the US administration in its fight against terrorism and its recourse to torture, comparing the camps to one in Guantanamo Bay.

The Swiss authorities, fearing a deterioration in their diplomatic relations with the US, with whom they are in the process of negotiating a free-exchange agreement, have sought to defuse the crisis by opening two investigations, one criminal, one military, to track down who was behind the leak. The journalists on SonntagsBlick face prison sentences under the terms of both investigations.

Geneva, 8 February 2006

Dear Federal Councillor,

Reporters Without Borders, an international organisation for the defence of press freedom, is particularly concerned about the investigations that have been opened by military justice and the federal public ministry against the editor of SonntagsBlick, Christoph Grenacher and two of his journalists, Sandro Brotz and Beat Jost. They are accused of having published on 8 January 2006, a fax from the Egyptian foreign ministry to London revealing the existence of secret CIA prisons in Europe.

Under Article 293 of the Swiss criminal code, invoked by the military investigation, the journalists face a fine and up to five years in prison for “publication of secret official debates”. The confederation’s public ministry accuses the journalists of having violated “the confidentiality of office”, making them liable to a fine or prison.

Can respect for military secrets in this case be applied to journalists, who are not auxiliaries of the state ? Also, according to Article 320 of the criminal code, the violation of confidentiality of office only applies to members of an authority or an official. We do not understand therefore why the federal justice system has invoked this article against the SonntagsBlick journalists.

We understand that publication of secret official documents is embarrassing - even prejudicial - for the Swiss authorities, but they should not mistake their target by seeking to punish journalists who only doing their duty which is to inform public opinion.

Swiss journalists should be able to benefit from the right to protect their sources included in the criminal code in 1998 (Articles 27a 1, 2a, 2b). We understand that the investigations that have been opened should pinpoint the origin of the leak of the official document which the newspaper published, but the journalists cannot be held responsible for it.

Recent statements by Dick Marty, tasked by the Council of Europe to shed light on the existence of such places of detention, only confirms the public interest linked to the publication of this document. Let us not forget that allegations of inhuman or abusive treatment have been made in this case.

As guardians of the Geneva Conventions, Switzerland owes it to itself to defend the principles contained therein, whatever the political circumstances of the moment.

We also support the request from the Media Freedom Representative of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Miklos Haraszti, calling on the Swiss authorities to amend its punitive laws over breaking of confidentiality so as to bring them into line with international and democratic standards that recognise the overriding public interest, or the public’s absolute right to information, in a country under the rule of law.

Knowing you to be sensitive to press freedom, we appeal to you to intervene so that the complaints against the SonntagsBlick journalists are withdrawn and so that they avoid receiving prison sentences. An editor from the same newspaper was already sentenced on 7 June 2005, to a six-month suspended prison sentence for violating military secrets. We also call on you apply journalists’ rights to protect their sources.

We trust you will give our request your careful consideration.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Ménard, Secretary general

Gérald Sapey, President Reporters Without Borders in Switzerland

Bron: Reporters Without Borders

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Ah, dus die geheime gevangenissen bestaan toch?

Aansluitend het volgende bericht:

The Sunday Times February 12, 2006

CIA chief sacked for opposing torture

^{Sarah Baxter and Michael Smith, Washington}

The CIA’s top counter-terrorism official was fired last week because he opposed detaining Al-Qaeda suspects in secret prisons abroad, sending them to other countries for interrogation and using forms of torture such as “water boarding”, intelligence sources have claimed.

Robert Grenier, head of the CIA counter-terrorism centre, was relieved of his post after a year in the job. One intelligence official said he was “not quite as aggressive as he might have been” in pursuing Al-Qaeda leaders and networks.

Vincent Cannistraro, a former head of counter-terrorism at the agency, said: “It is not that Grenier wasn’t aggressive enough, it is that he wasn’t ‘with the programme’. He expressed misgivings about the secret prisons in Europe and the rendition of terrorists.”

Grenier also opposed “excessive” interrogation, such as strapping suspects to boards and dunking them in water, according to Cannistraro.

Porter Goss, who was appointed head of the CIA in August 2004 with a mission to “clean house”, has been angered by a series of leaks from CIA insiders, including revelations about “black sites” in Europe where top Al-Qaeda detainees were said to have been held.

In last Friday’s New York Times, Goss wrote that leakers within the CIA were damaging the agency’s ability to fight terrorism and causing foreign intelligence organisations to lose confidence. “Too many of my counterparts from other countries have told me, ‘You Americans can’t keep a secret’.”

Goss is believed to have blamed Grenier for allowing leaks to occur on his watch.

Since the appointment of Goss, the CIA has lost almost all its high-level directors amid considerable turmoil.

AB “Buzzy” Krongard, a former executive director of the CIA who resigned shortly after Goss’s arrival, said the leaks were unlikely to stop soon, despite proposals to subject officers to more lie detector tests.

Krongard said it was up to President George Bush to stop the rot. “The agency has only one client: the president of the United States,” he said. “The reorganisation is the way this president wanted it. If he is unwilling to reform it, the agency will go on as it is.”

“History will judge how good an idea it was to destroy the teams and the programmes that were in place.”

Bron: Time Online