The official flight records were obtained by HFHR in collaboration with OSJI from The Polish Air Navigation Services Agency (“PANSA”) in response to a freedom of information request under the Statute on Access to Public Information. Since they were not revealed by anonymous sources but by a government agency, they provide a breakthrough information as they confirm previous findings concerning Polish involvement in the secret detention program. It is worth mentioning, that the official records were revealed by Polish authorities, although for the last four years government denied all allegations of its involvement in rendition. It negated the existence of the records and also failed to provide any data to investigations previously conducted by European Parliament and Council of Europe.
The official flight records affirm that at least six CIA rendition flights landed in 2003 at Szymany Airport, five of them originated in Kabul, Afghanistan and one in Rabat, Morocco – places known as holding secret facilities where terrorism suspects are interrogated. The official documents therefore constitute a solid evidence that in 2003 aircrafts associated with CIA had landed repeatedly in Poland. It should be noted, however, that the revealed materials not only restated that CIA associated flights landed in territory of Poland, but also provided new facts to the case. They reveal details of a cover-up by U.S. and Polish authorities. Both: names of the pilots and flight planes of the aircrafts were fake. Flights were, e.g., navigated by PANSA without a valid flight plan or were navigated into Szymany whereas the relevant flight logs showed Warsaw as a port of destination. This, in consequence, disclosed that PANSA repeatedly cooperated in the process of covering up the CIA rendition flight into Szymany Airport.
The Appeal Prosecutor Office in Warsaw has been conducting the investigation since 1.5 year concerning the alleged involvement of Polish authorities in the rendition program. So far, it has not provide any explanation of this subject-matter. Neither facts of the proceeding nor the approximate date of its conclusion is known. After the press conference, the vice-prosecutor of Appeal Prosecutor Office in Warsaw – Robert Majewski – stated that “the investigation is still pending and I can not disclose any details regarding it. I do not expect that it will be concluded soon. We do undertake intensive proceeding in the course of the investigation”.
The disclosed information is another step which brings closer to discover the truth about the secret detainee facilities in Poland. Therefore, the subject-matter of the press conference aroused a considerable interest. At the conference representatives of most influential Polish media were present, including press, television and radio. Shortly after it had finished, in some cases even during its course, many online news sites in Poland published front page news regarding this event. There were comments of experts and journalists both in television and radio, the next day the most important polish daily newspapers published articles relating to the conference.
Press releases available at:
http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/Wiadomosci/1,80271,7588778,Pierwsze_oficjalne_potwierdzenie_lotow_CIA_do_Polski.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/world/europe/23poland.html?ref=global-home
