The U.S. is hindering Poland’s investigation into a secret CIA prison there, a Polish prosecutor charged Saturday. Piotr Kosmaty, spokesman for the Appeals Prosecutor’s Office in Krakow, said that the U.S. has deliberately ignored requests for documents needed for the investigation. Polish prosecutors are particularly interested in a report by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that detailed CIA prison locations and practices.
Facts in the report suggested a secret CIA prison existed in Poland from 2002-2003 where terrorist suspects were tortured. Kosmaty said that Poland has asked the U.S. for the full non-redacted version of the report yet the U.S. has declined to provide it. The U.S. has also denied requests for other documents and opportunities to question the alleged victims, who are currently being held in Guantanamo Bay.
The Obama administration claims that releasing the documents would be against national interest. It is likely because the documents detail other CIA “black sites” in other parts of Poland, Romania and Lithuania.
An investigation into the prison has been ongoing in Poland since 2008, though it has largely been conducted under the cover of secrecy . The U.S. has acknowledged its so-called “extraordinary rendition” program in which targets were abducted and then sent to illegal detention facilities around the world.
In November 2013 Poland formally requested that the European Court of Human Rights hold a hearing about the country’s complicity in the CIA secret detention facilities, though the request was denied because of U.S. influence.
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