Currently, there is an official investigation being undertaken by the Prosecutor General into the matter. Until 2008, almost every politician in Poland denied any cooperation with the CIA in this regard. It has also been officially confirmed that CIA planes landed in the territory of Poland at Szymany airport. However, we still do not have the final confirmation as regards the existence of CIA secret detention places in the territory of Poland, although there are more facts now known which confirm this supposition. It has been claimed that such detention places could have been located at the territory of the Polish intelligence school in Stare Kiejkuty.
Denial by the Polish Government
Poland has been accused of being one of the countries which helped the USA during 2003 in the CIA rendition  programme, supposedly hosting a secret detention place, where detainees were transported from Afghanistan and Pakistan, tortured, and then sent to Guantánamo or other places of detention. From the very beginning of such claims being made, the Polish leftwing Government and politicians adopted a strategy of denial. Denial was made even by the former President of Poland, Aleksander Kwaśniewski. Politicians denied cooperation with CIA, secret flights over the territory of Poland and the existence of CIA secret detention places. They also refused any cooperation with the investigative committees of the European Union and the Council of Europe, led by Dick Marty. In fact, there was only one politician, the Polish MEP Józef Pinior who was a member of the special committee created by the European Parliament, who presented a different vision of facts and was indeed interested in explaining the matter.
The same approach was adopted by the next Government which took power in September 2005, formed by the Law and Justice Party. It continued the policy of denial, but possibly due to different reasons. The former left-wing Government could have been interested in covering up the matter due to its personal interest (in 2003 Aleksander Kwaśniewski was the President of Poland and left-wing politicians were in the Government). The right-wing Law and Justice Party headed by Jaroslaw Kaczyński most probably did not want to spoil good relations with the USA, the most important international partner for Poland.
In mid 2008, the new Polish Government, headed by Donald Tusk, decided to change the policy of denial and started an investigation as regards the existence of CIA sites in Poland. One can explain this change of strategy through political and international factors. The ruling party – Civic Platform – could feel secure as regards the potential results of investigation. Finding that Poland hosted CIA sites was not a political threat for its major politicians, as they were not in power when it happened. It was also important internationally to start an investigation. The policy of denial, when respected international actors (such as the Council of Europe or the European Parliament or NGOs such as Amnesty International) confirmed Poland’s involvement in the CIA rendition programme, stopped being a good strategy. By starting an investigation, the Polish Government could start to present itself as accountable towards the international community.
Current Status of Proceedings
Currently the criminal investigation by the Prosecutor General in Poland is still pending. One of the country’s leading prosecutors has been appointed to deal with the case. The case is being treated with maximum seriousness (which is not always the case in Poland as regards major political cases). The investigation seeks to identify whether public officials committed a crime of abuse of power by allowing a certain part of Polish territory to be under control of a foreign state. One may question whether a Polish prosecutor is equally interested in the crime of torture allegedly committed on Polish territory. There is a risk that there will be no sufficient evidence to prove it, especially if the USA would prefer to protect its agents against any international liability. One can presume the defence strategy of Polish officials involved in the matter would be that they did not really know what was happening in Stare Kiejkuty, at the territory of the school of Polish intelligence. According to some journalists, ’Zero Zone’ was located in this school which was an area only CIA agents could access, and secret detention places were created in specially modified houses.
Without the official results of the investigation these are only predictions. We can only base our knowledge on publicly available information, the results of journalists’ investigations as well as new official reports. Despite official requests by the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (HFHR) and demands expressed by the media, there is no information about the current stage of proceedings and when it is going to end.
It is believed that the Polish investigation may be affected by the results of an investigation in Lithuania. An important question raised by this investigation is whether High Value Detainees were transported from Polish secret detention places to the Lithuanian ones. If there is proof of that in the Lithuanian investigation, then it should be taken into account in the Polish investigation. One of the most important recent reports is the one prepared by the
United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while combating terrorism, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances In addition to general information as regards Poland’s involvement in the CIA rendition programme, the report provides information on using private aviation contractors to make flights in the territory of Poland and the practice of preparing fake documentation. Most importantly, it includes information on the alleged detention of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in Poland.

Adam Bodnar is the head of the legal division and member of the Management Board of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. He is also a lecturer at the Warsaw University Faculty of Law and Administration and a member of the visiting faculty of the Central European University in Budapest.

* The is a part of the article published in the Interights Bulletin  (Spring 2010, vol. 16 no. 1), available at: http://www.interights.org/view-document/index.htm?id=575.