CYPRUS HAS no plans to investigate how 57 CIA rendition flights carrying terrorist suspects to other countries to be tortured managed to land in Larnaca airport, the government said yesterday.
Yesterday EU lawmakers backed a final report concluding a year of investigations into allegations that the CIA secretly held terror suspects in Europe and flew some to states that practise torture.
Over 1,200 such flights were carried out in 14 EU countries, including Cyprus.
The article adopted by deputies yesterday said the European Parliament “condemns extraordinary rendition as an illegal instrument used by the United States in the fight against terrorism.
“[It] condemns, further, the acceptance and concealing of the practice, on several occasions, by the secret services and governmental authorities of certain European countries.”
It is unlikely, the report said, that European governments were unaware of rendition activities on their territory.
“This is a report that doesn’t allow anyone to look the other way. We must be vigilant that what has been happening in the past five years may never happen again,” said Italian Socialist MEP Giovanni Fava, who drafted the document.
The report, which deplores the passivity of some Member States in the face of illegal CIA operations, as well as the lack of co-operation from the EU Council of Ministers, was approved by a majority of 382 against 256 with 74 abstentions.
The European Parliament has urged member states to investigate what took place on their territory. It said that the national governments specifically criticised for their unwillingness to cooperate with Parliament’s investigations were those of Austria, Italy, Poland, Portugal and the UK.
Fava said earlier this month the political body of the bloc, should order an independent investigation and “where necessary, impose sanctions on member states in case of serious and persistent violations.”
Governments of member countries found at fault by the European Parliament could face serious consequences, including suspension of their EU voting rights.
While some reports yesterday suggested that several countries would investigate, Cyprus said it would not.
Government Spokesman Christodoulos Pashiardis said yesterday there was no point. ‘There is no practical purpose to an investigation,” he said. “What can we find?”
Asked whether the government had yet received “explanations” from the US embassy in Nicosia, Pashiardis said he would have to consult with the Foreign Ministry.
When the allegations first surfaced last year, the government said it could not know what exactly the flights were when the landed in Cyprus.
There were no effective and practical means to establish the precise identity and content of the planes that land for technical reasons in Larnaca. They are not required to give passengers lists and there is no way to know they are CIA planes, the government said.
Neither is Civil Aviation allowed, under international law, to refuse flights that request landing for technical reasons. According to the government the CIA had been discreetly leasing planes from charter airlines to carry out the rendition flights.
Suspicions were apparently not aroused even over the frequency of “technical landings” because they were requested by different airlines.
Cypriot MEP Panayiotis Demetriou, who participated in the investigation said secret flights and secret prisons were not actions that were compatible with human rights or EU norms.
“We cannot close our eyes to these violations,” he said.
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