Court rejects Polish request to keep CIA jail hearing private

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Court rejects Polish request to keep CIA jail hearing private

BY CHRISTIAN LOWE
PRAGUE Thu Nov 14, 2013 2:05pm EST

(Reuters) - The European Court of Human Rights has rejected a request from the Polish government to exclude the press and public from a hearing next month into whether Poland hosted a secret CIA jail on its soil, the court said on Thursday.

The hearing in Strasbourg, scheduled for December 3, will be the first time an open court has heard the allegations that Warsaw allowed the United States to detain and interrogate al Qaeda suspects in a forest in northern Poland.

The Polish government has denied any CIA jail existed, and has said its communications with the court should be kept secret to protect its national security. Human rights groups accuse Poland of a cover-up.

The court told Reuters last month that Warsaw had requested that the hearing into allegations from two men who say they were illegally detained by the CIA in Poland should take place behind closed doors.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/14/us-poland-cia-prison-idUSBRE9AD16M20131114

[friendly_iconoclast]

1. That would be Stary Kiejkuty:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stare_Kiejkuty_%28base%29

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/08/13/162137/poland-peels-back-layers-on-secret.html

Poland peels back layers on secret CIA prison for suspected terrorists

By Roy Gutman

McClatchy Newspapers August 13, 2012

STARE KIEJKUTY, Poland — On an idyllic lake surrounded by woods and a double row of mesh-and-razor-wire fences about 100 miles north of Warsaw, there stands a secluded villa that the CIA once used to interrogate – and allegedly torture – top al Qaida suspects.

On the grounds of the Polish intelligence-training academy and nicknamed “Markus Wolf” for the former East German spy chief, it’s the focal point for a top-secret probe that Polish prosecutors have launched into how their government tolerated rampant violations of international and Polish law.

If former officials are brought to trial, or if the stacks of classified files in the prosecutors’ offices are made public, the result will be revelations about an American anti-terrorism operation whose details U.S. officials are fighting to keep secret.

Already the prosecutor has charged Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, Poland’s former interior minister and intelligence chief, with unlawful detention and corporal punishment for allowing the CIA to operate at Stare Kiejkuty from December 2002 to September 2003.