Calls for action to restore habeus corpus here at the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC).

An action alert for Saturday, June 24, in the UK in response to the story about torture flights in Britain I posted earlier (I’ve added several new links and information, so check it out) and an upcoming Council of Europe debate next week. Here is the contact information for the police chiefs involved in the investigation of the recent alleged torture flight to Scotland. Might not be a bad idea to drop them a line.

The Wilametter Weekly has this story of a lawyer who got caught up unknowingly – he says – in the CIA’s torture flights.

Fortunately, in a landmark decision, the House of Lords decided 4-1 that the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act applied to Iraqis held by Britain in Iraq. This will allow, torture victims to get their day in court and compensation. Maybe, that financial disincentive might clarify the thinking of the intelligence agencies and torture aficionados…

More information on UK airport activism here and a picture here at Indymedia.

An article here by Clayton Hallmark at Indymedia, January 1, 2006 gives some background details:

49 Planes in the News

EU AGREED TO CIA PRISON FLIGHTS — With these words: “Both sides [EU-US] agreed on … increased use of European transit facilities to support the
return of criminal/inadmissible aliens….”

“European transit facilities” are the airspaces and airports now claimed to be violated. “The return” is what the CIA calls “rendition”; and “criminal/inadmissible aliens” are persons who have been renditioned to Guantanamo, CIA prisons in Eastern Europe, and states that practice torture in the Middle East. You can read the actual PDF documents to get the details of how the US and EU agreed to “remove” people to these places without legal extradition.
——————————-

A US PROPOSAL right after 9/11 included these words:

Quoting: “5. Keeping open European transit facilities to support the return of criminal/inadmissible
aliens from the United States to Europe or the country of origin.
Improve cooperation in removals of status violators/criminals/inadmissibles.
More fulsome use of immigration laws to effect removals of fugitives without recourse
to extradition.”

The above is in the first European PDF document (13803/01), of Nov. 12, 2001, entitled: OUTCOME OF PROCEEDINGS of : Strategic Committee on Immigration, Frontiers and Asylum – Meeting with the United States

THE EU CAVED IN (“agreed”) a little over a year later with these words:

Quoting: “4.1. … Both sides agreed on the areas where cooperation could be improved i.a. the exchange of data
between border management services, increased use of European transit facilities to support the
return of criminal/inadmissible aliens, co-ordination with regard to false documents training (US
side will provide the EU with a paper suggesting modalities for the coordination of false documents
training) and improving the cooperation in removals.”

The above is in the second European PDF document (5762/03), of Jan. 27, 2003, entitled: New Transatlantic Agenda. EU-US meeting on Justice and Home Affairs. Athens, 22 January 2003.

Proof of European complicity in lynchings (“renditions” or “removals”) of Muslims is at (BE SURE to copy and paste the WHOLE address including “.pdf.”):
https://dhs.riigikantselei.ee/ELdocs.nsf/e4053b6b4c0cc4d0c2256d12003fe6c4/6F8F7D053FEC3768C2256DD5005E1A92$File/st05762.en03.pdf
—————————————–

Persons who signed this agreement could be liable to civil and criminal prosecution, if it can be proved that they intended to cause illegal actions.

US SIDE
MARK RICHARD – Department of Justice – Senior Counsel – US/EU Rep. – Brussels
FRANK KERBER – JHA Counselor, USEUR Brussels
MARC MEZNAR – First Secretary, USEU Brussels
BRUCE SWARTZ – Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Criminal Matters at DOJ
MAREN BROOKS – Policy Analyst – Department of State (INL)

EUROPEAN COMMISSION
JAN DE CEUSTER
J.L. DE BROUWER
LOTTE KNUDSEN
DIEDERIK PAALMAN

SGC
GILLES DE KERCHOVE

ITALIAN SIDE
Emanuele MAROTTA, Ministry of Interior, Office for the Coordination and Planning of Police
Forces, Service for International Relations
Carmelo VELLA, Ministry of Interior, Office for the Coordination and Planning of Police Forces,
Service for International Relations
Andree PORTUEGI, Ministry of Interior, Office for the Coordination and Planning of Police
Forces, Service for International Relations
Enrico GORNARI, Ministry of Interior, Border police
Sebastiano NERI, Ministry of Justice, Department Justice Affairs

MORE LISTS AND BACKGROUND

CIA DDO (Jose Rodriguez), the chief spy? CIA planes, front companies, lawyers? The 22 American CIA agents allegedly led by Robert Seldon Lady in the 2003 Milan kidnapping of Muslim cleric Abu Omar? All are listed below. The Italian secret service SISMI knew in advance of their operation, just as Mr. Lady claims. There is a document that proves, in writing, such operations involve the cooperation of EU governments. The Milan prosecutor Spataro knows this. Prime Minister Berlusconi knows this. Still, these two men are on a collision course as Spataro prepares for a show trail of the 22 “in absentia” while Berlusconi attempts to get away with denying everything.

Also, Italy is one of 25-plus countries (listed) in which the CIA and foreign spy agencies work out of the same office (CTIC, see list)! Any illegal operations can be stopped by lawsuits and liens on planes and companies (another list).

————————————————————————————————————-

CLIP AND SAVE LIST OF PLANES BELOW. It will make following the news (lawsuits, prosecutions, investigations) much easier!

A few days after the Athens agreement on renditions, Robert Lady and a CIA/US military team allegedly kidnapped in Milan and transported to torture in Egypt one Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, or Abu Omar. Now, while poor Bob Lady sits out an exile (possibly in Punta Gorda, Florida, instead of his retirement villa in Penango, Italy), lying hypocrites in European governments deny knowledge of kidnappings like the one he is charged with in Italy.

Colin Powell is right: the European governments are being hypocrites by denying they knew about renditions and torture flights , or “removals” and “use of European transit facilities,” as the document calls them — or lynchings of Muslims.

ROBERT (BOB) LADY and WILLIAM (BILL OR BILLY) LADY

Robert Seldon Lady is an American born in Honduras in 1954. His father, William (Bill or Billy) Seldon Lady lived in Arkansas and Florida before moving to Honduras when he was 20 (in 1946). Billy Lady was in Honduras during the Iran-contra affair. This 1980s affair involved the sale of arms to Iran by Lt. Col. Oliver North, operating out of the Reagan White House. North and his associates used the proceeds from the Iran arms sales, and proceeds from sales of Colombian drugs in the US, to finance material aid to the contra (“against”) rebels trying to overthrow the elected Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The CIA was heavily involved in this.

Bill Lady (again, Bob Lady’s dad) ran an airline out of the Bay Islands (see map) at the time. As a mining prospector, he had thoroughly surveyed the Olancho department (province) of eastern Honduras, where most of the Iran-contra action occurred in Honduras, and neighboring parts of Nicaragua. Mr. Lady had a farm near Danli in the El Paraiso department, at the time, in the thick of the action. (SEE MAP.) He also was an accomplished cruise sailor, a network controller of a worldwide amateur-radio network used by military personnel, an aviation pioneer of Honduras, and the expert on eastern Honduras terrain. He may have rented aircraft to the US Government, which of course is not illegal.

His son, the alleged renditioner Robert Seldon Lady, joined the CIA in Latin America in about 1984. In 2001, before leaving for Milan, Italy, Bob Lady worked out of New Orleans and the US Embassy in Panama under Jose A. Rodriguez Jr, now the Deputy Director for Operations (DDO) of the CIA. Bob Lady is charged with being the ringleader of the Feb. 17, 2003, kidnapping of Abu Omar off the streets of Milan. Abu Omar was transferred to Egypt by the Boston Red Sox Gulfstream executive jet N85V (now N227SV) and the CIA Learjet N221SG. The Learjet is operated by Aero Contractors Limited, which has locations at the airports in Smithfield and Kinston, North Carolina, which recently have been picketed by protesters.

Bob Lady claims that the Italian secret service knew in advance of the Abu Omar grab, and he is right, based on the EU-US agreement and on the existence of a joint US-Italy “Counterterrorist Intelligence Center” (CTIC) in Italy.

Bob Lady, as the Milan station chief of the CIA, is rumored to have cooperated in the back-channel transmission (avoiding official CIA and other channels) of forged Niger documents to Dick Cheney’s and Paul Wolfowitz’s White House Iraq Group, also to the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans (the “Stovepipe”) created by Wolfowitz. President Bush picked false intelligence based on those documents, for use in his 2003 State of the Union address and elsewhere, to sell his Iraq war plans.

Karl Rove’s foreign policy advisor, Michael Ledeen, was a key figure in Iran-contra while the Ladys were in Honduras. If they were involved with the CIA in Honduras at the time, Ledeen knew them.

The Milan prosecutor, Armando Spataro, has hard drives captured from Lady’s home in Penango. Lady in turn had his father’s hard drives. Bob Lady’s hard drives have revealed much about the abduction of Abu Omar; and the drives, or Lady himself, may have much to reveal about Iran-contra. Alumni of Iran-contra, like Michael Ledeen, are in the current Bush administration and were leaders in fabricating a cause for invading Iraq.

INDIVIDUAL AGREEMENTS FOR 25-PLUS CTICs — JOINT SPY VENTURES WITH CIA

Beyond knowing about CIA rendition flights, the Europeans are cooperating fully in them. The CIA has supposedly “secret” CTICs (Counterterrorist Intelligence Centers) in over 25 countries, including some supposed Iraq-war opponents like France, Germany, and Sweden. These are joint-venture spy-nests with the local intelligence service (Italy’s SISMI, for example) and military. The CIA supplies about 20 agents for each and an about-$20-million-dollars’ annual budget. They share offices, equipment, and information continually. There is no way SISMI could NOT have known in advance about the Abu Omar snatch in Milan. http://www.refdag.nl/artikel/1238465/CIA%20spil%20van%20groot%20antiterreurnetwerk.html

Here is a list of the countries with CTICs:

EUROPE
1. Albania
2. Bosnia
3. Britain
4. Bulgaria
5. France
6. Germany
7. Hungary
8. Italy
9. Kosovo (province of Serbia)
10. Macedonia
11. Poland
12. Portugal
13. Romania
14. Spain
15. Sweden

ASIA
16. Afghanistan
17. Indonesia
18. Pakistan
19. Phillipines
20. Thailand
21. Uzbekistan

MIDDLE EAST, NORTH AFRICA
22. Algeria
23. Egypt
24. Jordan
25. Libya
26. Morocco
27. Saudi Arabia
28. Turkey
29. Yemen

OTHER
30. Australia
31. Canada

In the spring of 2005, the CIA’s Deputy Director for Operations (the head of the espionage directorate), Jose A. Rodriguez Jr, told House and Senate intelligence committees that 25 CTICs had been instrumental in arresting over 3000 suspected terrorists. http://www.refdag.nl/artikel/1238465/CIA%20spil%20van%20groot%20antiterreurnetwerk.html Many of these have been renditioned; flown to the jails of the CIA, US military, and brutal regimes (Egypt, etc.); tortured; and subjected to indefinite imprisonment — all without any legal proceedings except, sometimes, kangaroo courts in countries to where they have been flown.

The renditions, overflights, and imprisonments have taken place mainly in the above countries. Human rights groups and other investigators in those countries have a lot to learn.

US FIRMS, PERSONS TO BE SUED FOR CIA’S TORTURE, EVILS

Gettng governments of the US and the above countries to do anything about CIA abuses will be hard. However, people can be sued for these abuses when they can be identified in the US and other countries more or less subject to the rule of law.

In the US, Aero Contractors (which operates CIA planes out of Smithfield and Kinston, NC) and its president Norman Richardson, Richmor Aviation (NY) and its owner Mahlon Richards, CIA shell companies and their lawyers like Dean Plakias (MA) and Scott Caplan (WA) — these are but a few of the many US firms that could potentially be served legal actions by victims of CIA kidnapping and torture, based on the existence of the landmark lawsuit filed Dec. 6 by CIA victim Khaled el-Masri of Germany. Already Aero and Plakias have heard from Masri’s lawyers. Then there are CIA officials like James Pavitt, its retired DDO (Deputy Director for Operations). The DDO reportedly is the specific officer who approves kidnappings and torture measures for specific victims. The DDOs can be gone after. Pavitt was the DDO from Aug. 1999 to Aug. 2004, succeeded by Stephen Kappes (Aug. to Nov. 2004). The Nation says the DDO since Nov. 2004 is Jose Rodriguez. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20041213/vest

BESIDES PERSONS ALREADY CHARGED, like the alleged organizer of the Abu Omar rendition in Italy, who reportedly is in Punta Gorda, Florida, who else might be liable, criminally or civilly, for Abu Omar’s Feb. 2003 abduction from Italy and transport via US planes and air bases to Egypt? Omar, when briefly released, called home to report what happened to him and got rearrested for that. He was tortured and maimed, allegedly in the presence of CIA officer Robert Lady, and remains imprisoned by his Egyptian torturers.

There are numerous current and retired employees of the CIA’s Operations Directorate who potentially could be sued for CIA renditions and related abuses. Some of them have signed fat book contracts and are reaping large speaking fees bragging about their outrages. An example is Michael Scheuer, the McLean, VA, man who was in charge of snatches from 1995, when the first victim was seized, until June 1999. There were some 50 victims in that period. Since 9/11, there have been 150 to 200 snatches.

According to the Washington Post, in the wake of 9/11, our President ordered the CIA to break up the organization that murdered 3000 innocent Americans. Director-CIA George Tenet delegated the task of individuals to target to DDO Pavitt and Rodriguez, who at the time was the director of the Counterterrorist Center (CTC). Already Tenet has been named in the groundbreaking lawsuit by el-Masri, along with CIA “John Does,” which probably includes Pavitt and Rodriguez.

As for Jose Rodriguez, before he became the CIA DDO in late 2004 he was the head of the CIA Counterterrorist Center, CTC. The CTC is the part of the CIA that carries out renditions. So for ones done in that time frame, Rodriguez could be liable personally. No wonder he is so publicity shy. http://www.refdag.nl/artikel/1238465/CIA%20spil%20van%20groot%20antiterreurnetwerk.html

AERO CONTRACTORS is another potential defendent and is being sued by the German citizen Khaled el-Masri and the ACLU. Aero Contractors is a real, rather than a shell, company that provides the pilots and flight crews for most CIA planes. The planes are owned by the CIA through phony companies fronted by lawyers. However, the victims’ lawyers can serve papers on the CIA-front lawyers, who are known, and thus secure liens in US courts against the CIA’s planes.

A list of CIA shell companies for owning aircraft (while leaving actual operations to Aero Contractors and other CIA contractors) appears at the end of this article, along with their agents (lawyers) for legal service.

CIA AIR ( CLIP AND SAVE. )

Indispensable to Newswatchers, Planewatchers,
and all CIA Watchers.

__________________________________________________

CIA AIR — LIST OF CIA PLANES by N-Number
by Clayton Hallmark

Includes rendition planes, CIA front companies, contractors.
__________________________________________________

—See list of owner companies (AVSPECS, etc.) at end.
—Does not include contractor planes unlikely used by CIA.
—Some planes have had more than one number. There
are 50 numbers below but only 44 separate planes.
“r” — Known rendition or prison (Guantanamo, etc.) plane.
__________________________________________________
N-number, Maker Model, Serial No., OWNER

N1HC_____ Gulfstream GV-SP, s/n 5009, US AV
N33NJ_____Gates Learjet 35A-305, s/n 305, NATIONAL
r-N50BH____Gulfstream III, s/n 359, CRYSTAL
r-N85VM____now N227SV, Gulfstream IV, s/n 1172, BOSOX
N120JM____Fairchild SA227-AT, s/n AT-577, PATH
N157A____Beech B200C, s/n BL-53, AVSPECS
N168BF____Raytheon Hawker 800XP, s/n 258373, WELLS
N168D____CASA CN-235-300, s/n C135, DEVON
N173S____Beech B300, s/n FM-4, STEVENS
N187D____CASA CN-235, s/n C-143, DEVON

N196D____CASA CN-235, s/n 139, DEVON
N212AZ____AEROSPATIALE ATR-42, s/n 016, KRAMER
N212CP____Cessna 208B, s/n 208B0531, PATH
N219D____CASA CN-235, s/n C-145, DEVON
r-N221SG____Gates Learjet 35A, s/n 182, PATH
r-N227SV____ex N85V, Gulfstream IV, s/n 1172, BOSOX
r-N259SK____ex N829MG, Gulfstream III, s/n 327, S&K
(bought from PRESIDENT)
N299AL____Raytheon B200C, s/n BB-1823, AVSPEC

N312ME____Beech 200C, s/n BL-46, AVSPEC
r-N313P____now N4476S, Boeing 737-7ET, s/n 33010,
KEELER, ex-PREMIER
N315CR____ AEROSPATIALE ATR-42-320, s/n 252,
JEFFERSON
r-N379P____see N44982, ex N8068V, N581GA, Gulfstream V,
s/n 581, BAYARD (after Dec 2004), PREMIER
N470JF____ AEROSPATIALE ATR-42-320, s/n 247,
JEFFERSON
N505LL____DeHavilland DHC-8-315, s/n 415, PATH
r-N581GA___ see N44982, ex N379P, N8068V, Gulfstream V,
s/n 581, BAYARD (after Dec 2004), PREMIER
N822US____McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82 (MD-82), s/n 49139,
ALAMEDA, c/o JETRAN, San Antonio, Texas
N824MG____Learjet 55, s/n 106, PRESIDENT (Plane, number
now registered to “Lear II, LLC,” Bellevue, WA.)
N825MG____Learjet 55, s/n 055, PRESIDENT (Plane, number
now registered to “Lear I, LLC” Bellevue, WA.)
N828MG____Gulfstream III, s/n 409, PRESIDENT. Number no
longer assigned. Plane sold to Raleigh Holdings.
r-N829MG____N259SK, Gulfstream III, s/n 327, PRESIDENT
(sold by Mark J. Gordon to S&K and renumbered)
N845S____Douglas DC3, s/n 25509 (43-48248), STEVENS
N955BW____Fairchild SA227-DC, s/n DC821B (C26B), AWS
N956BW____Fairchild SA227-DC, s/n DC864B, AWS
N961BW____CASA C-212-CC, s/n 248, AWS
N962BW____CASA C-212-200, s/n 290, PRESIDENT
N963BW____CASA C-212-CC, s/n 320, AWS

N964BW____CASA C-212-DF, s/n 379, AWS
N965BW____CASA C-212-DF, s/n 393, AWS
N966BW____CASA C-212-200, s/n 289, AWS
N967BW____CASA C-212-CD, s/n 304, AWS
N968BW____CASA C-212-CD, s/n 309, AWS
N1016M____Cessna 208, s/n 20800153, CROWELL
N2189M____Lockheed 382G-44K-30, s/n 4582, RAPID
(owner), TEPPER (operator)
N4009L____Raytheon B300C, s/n FM-9, STEVENS
N4042J____Beech B200, s/n BB-874, STEVENS
N4456A____Raytheon B200C, s/n BL-143, AVSPEC
r-N4476S____N313P, Boeing 737-7ET, s/n 33010, KEELER
(was PREMIER’s N313P)
N4489A____Raytheon B200C, s/n BL-145, AVSPEC
N4557C____Lockheed 382G-44K-30, s/n 5027, RAPID
(owner), TEPPER (operator)
N5139A____Raytheon B200C, s/n BL-144, AVSPEC
N5155A____Raytheon B200C, s/n BL-146, AVSPEC
N6161Q____Dehavilland DHC-6-300, s/n 633, AVSPEC
r-N8068V____see N44982, ex N379P, N581GA, Gulfstream V,
s/n 581, BAYARD (after Dec 2004), PREMIER
N8183J____Lockheed 382G-44K-30, s/n 4796, RAPID
(owner), TEPPER (operator)
N8213G____Lockheed Hercules L100-30, s/n 5055, HSL
(Plane had PRESCOTT markings.)
r-N44982____ex N379P, N8068V, N581GA, Gulfstream V,
s/n 581, BAYARD (after Dec 2004), PREMIER
Famous Guantanamo Express retired to 126CH,Inc.
(CH Mortgages Services, Miami, FL) in 2006.

KEY TO COMPANIES:

ALAMEDA – Alameda Corp, c/o Jetran International Ltd,
San Antonio, Texas
AVSPECS – Aviation Specialties, Inc.
AWS – Aviation Worldwide Services, LLC, sister company to
PRESIDENT, both owned by Blackwater USA, Melbourne, FL
BAYARD – Bayard Foreign Marketing, LLC
BOSOX – Boston Red Sox coowner Phillip H. Morse; Assembly
Point Aviation (registered); Richmor Aviation, Inc. (charters)
CROWELL – Crowell Aviation Technologies, Inc.
CRYSTAL – Crystal Jet Aviation, Inc.
DEVON – Devon Holding & Leasing, Inc.
HSL – HSL Company. Registered civilian Hercules C-130 oper-
ated by PRESCOTT Support Company
JEFFERSON – Jefferson Financial Co., c/o RL&F Services
New Castle, Delaware
KEELER – Keeler and Tate Management, LLC (737 formerly
owned by PREMIER)
KRAMER – Kramer Investments Co., New Castle, Delaware
NATIONAL – National Jets, Inc., Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
PATH – Path Corporation
PREMIER – Premier Executive Transport Services, Inc.
PRESCOTT – Prescott Support Co. Had its name on HSL plane
PRESIDENT – Presidential Airways, Inc. – Sister Co. of AWS,
both owned by Blackwater USA, Melbourne, FL, mercenaries
S&K – S&K Aviation, LLC. Gulfstream III got from PRESIDENT
WELLS – Wells Fargo Bank Northwest NA. Trustee,
registered plane.
RAPID – Rapid Air Trans, Inc./Rapid Air Transportation, Inc.
Owns 3 civilian Hercules C-130s operated by TEPPER.
STEVENS – Stevens Express Leasing, Inc.
TEPPER – Tepper Aviation, Inc., Crestview, Florida.
UNITED –
US AV – United States Aviation Co., Washington, DC

————————————————————————————–

CIA SHELL COMPANIES, ADDRESSES, LEGAL AGENTS

AVIATION SPECIALTIES INC.
PO BOX 9891
FRIENDSHIP HEIGHTS STATION POST OFFICE
4005 WISCONSIN AVE, NW
WASHINGTON, DC 20016 US
(District of Columbia County)
Most Co. planes registered to above.
Additional Address:
10601 BALTIMORE AVE
SUITE 300 (3RD FLOOR)
BELTSVILLE, MD 20705
(Prince George’s County)
Raytheon (Beech) B200C, S/N BB-1823 registered to above.
LAWYER: DOUGLAS R. THOMAS
(Now at AS Address: Leslie Silverman, Gregory R. Caruso)
Thomas lent his address for the one plane, didn’t
register Co. with state (MD), was disbarred in 2000.
He also lent his address for RAPID, below.

———————————————————————————-
BAYARD FOREIGN MARKETING, LLC
755 PITTOCK BLOCK
921 SW WASHINGTON ST
PORTLAND, OR 97205 US
(Multnomah County)
LAWYER: SCOTT D. CAPLAN (same address)
of Jordan, Caplan, Paul & Etter

———————————————————————————–
CROWELL AVIATION TECHNOLOGIES, INC
339 WASHINGTON ST STE 202
DEDHAM, MA 02026 US
(Norfolk County)
LAWYER: DEAN PLAKIAS (same address)
of Hill & Plakias (practice: family law)

———————————————————————————–
DEVON HOLDING & LEASING, INC.
129 WEST CENTER STREET # 2
LEXINGTON, NC 27292-3009
(Davidson County)
LAWYER: Mark E. Klass
Klass is now a judge. He incorporated STEVENS (below).
Davidson County Hall of Justice, 110 W. Center St.,
P.O. Box 1064 Lexington, NC 27293-1064
(336) 249-0351
(Now at 129 W Center St. is attorney Carroll C. Wall.)

——————————————————————————————-
KEELER AND TATE MANAGEMENT, LLC
KEELER AND TATE MANAGEMENT, LLC
245 E LIBERTY ST STE 510
RENO, NV 89501 US
(Washoe County)
LAWYER: STEVEN F. PETERSEN (same address), political PR
SAME OFFICE: Paul D. Laxalt (ex-US Senator), Peter D. Laxalt,
Frank R. Petersen

———————————————————————————————
PATH CORPORATION
413 REHOBOTH AVE PO BOX 305
REHOBOTH BEACH, DE 19971 US
(Sussex County)
LAWYER: UNKNOWN
(Now at PATH’s address is Barbara-Cherrix O’Leary, real estate lawyer.)

———————————————————————————————-
PREMIER EXECUTIVE TRANSPORT SERVICES, INC.
(Same address, same lawyer as CROWELL above.)
339 WASHINGTON ST STE 202
DEDHAM, MA 02026 US
(Norfolk County)
LAWYER: DEAN PLAKIAS (same address)
of Hill & Plakias (practice: family law)

————————————————————————————–
PRESCOTT SUPPORT COMPANY
555 MARRIOTT DRIVE, SUITE 350
NASHVILLE, TN 37214
(Davidson County)
LAWYER: MARK E. MORRISON

————————————————————————————–
RAPID AIR TRANS INC
RAPID AIR TRANSPORT INC
10601 BALTIMORE AVE
SUITE 300 (3RD FLOOR)
BELTSVILLE, MD 20705 US
(Prince George’s County)
LAWYER: DOUGLAS R. THOMAS, bankruptcy lawyer
(Same Office: Leslie Silverman, Gregory R. Caruso)
Thomas lent his address for Rapid “Trans” and “Transport”
as well as AVIATION SPECIALTIES (above).
Thomas registered “Trans” with the state for a time,
“Transport” not at all. He was disbarred in 2000.

————————————————————————————-
STEVENS EXPRESS LEASING INC
8130 COUNTRY VILLAGE DR STE 101
CORDOVA, TN 38016 US
(Shelby County)
LAWYER: DOUGLAS R. BEATY (Same address),
real estate lawyer
Company was incorporated by Mark E. Klass
(see DEVON), now a judge in Lexington, NC.

“In he next few hours, Congress is scheduled to vote on the McGovern-Lewis amendment that, if passed, could close down the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly and better known as the School of the Americas (SOA). The SOA, an immensely controversial U.S. military training facility, for decades has been used to instruct Latin American military personnel in order to professionalize their skills…”

More by Eliane Montfort at Counterpunch, which also has the story of Lofti Lagha, a prisoner at Guantanamo. And a piece here at Salon about the reverse-engineering (with the help of professional psychiatrists/psychologists of torture- resistance training (SERE) to train the military and CIA to employ torture.

Update: See my post here for the latest.. 

 “Little-known documents made public yesterday detail illegal and scandalous activities by the CIA more than 30 years ago – wiretappings of journalists, kidnappings, warrantless searches and more. The documents provide a glimpse of nearly 700 pages of materials that the agency has declassified and plans to release next week.” More here

and also here at the Washington Post.

From Glen Owen (more by this author) comes this report in the UK’s Daily Mail (the story was withdrawn as this links shows) on what is claimed to be a torture flight that touched down recently in Britain. The report (this is the link that works) has been making the blog rounds, and I’ll be able to check its authenticity in a few days. (Update: I found another short piece here at the Mail, seems to be a version of the above, dated June 15).

In the nearly two weeks since it broke, there hasn’t been a credible denial, so I’ll take it as plausible, but not proven. The British police, of course, denied it. So did the foreign office. However, this story in the Scotsman suggests that aviation experts had enough evidence to get the justice minister to check if torture planes were actually touching down at Scottish airports. And, it seems, the police didn’t really get around to checking out Scotland. This astute reader on the discussion board at democraticunderground points out that the police chief’s denial might involve some close reading…

“Britain did not allow CIA planes to use its airports to secretly transport terrorism suspects . . .”
We can conclude that the British government had full knowledge, so it wasn’t secret.
Or we can conclude that these weren’t terrorism suspects but hapless captives.
And the statement remains “true,” but our worst suspicions are still true.”
Forbes published a story claiming the Mail story was false and had been retracted accordingly, but as you can see, the Forbes story itself is not a news story, but is a public relations release by the prominent intelligence contractor Blackwater, which (as the alleged owner of the alleged plane) is an interested party in the story……alas and alack..

So, back to square one…

For those not familiar with the US government’s outsourcing of torture to private contractors, here’s background information at The Spy Who Billed Me.

And here’s a fax from the Egyptian foreign ministry to its ambassador in London, confirming CIA sites in Europe, (also confirmed by Guantanamo prisoners). And this piece in the Times is about the torture of Abu Omar in Egypt, apparently a combined effort of Italian and American intelligence that became the subject of an Italian judicial inquiry. 26 Americans are accused of their roles in it.

And here’s some information about the plane in question, N964BW.

And some interesting discussion in this blog comments section about the type of plane and the likelihood of its being used in such an operation.

Meanwhile – in his confirmation hearings to be general counsel of the CIA, John Rizzo refused to state publicly that the intelligence agency did not render suspects for torture, according to ABC’s Blotter.

With those preliminaries done, here’s the story/allegation/ report/rumor/filthy treasonous gossip…take your pick:

“The row over CIA ‘torture flights’ using British airports has deepened following fresh evidence that a plane repeatedly linked to the controversial programme landed in the UK just days ago.

The plane was logged arriving at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk last weekend, and watching aviation experts said the aircraft, piloted by crew clad in desert fatigues, was immediately surrounded on the runway by armed American security forces.

This flight was spotted landing at a UK airport – proof that ‘rendition ‘ flights are still taking place

Its registration number, clearly visible on the fuselage, identifies it as a plane which the European Parliament says has been involved in ‘ghost flights’ to smuggle terrorist suspects to shadowy interrogation centres abroad.

Records show the plane is owned by Blackwater USA, a CIA contractor described as “the most secretive and powerful mercenary army on the planet”. An eyewitness, who previously worked as an RAF electronic warfare expert, said that as the plane – a CASA-212 Aviocar – taxied to a stop on the runway it was met by a US military Humvee.

The vehicle contained four US security policemen armed with M16 assault rifles, who accompanied the camouflaged crew to the airport terminal.

The man, who did not want to be identified, added: “I thought it was curious that they would give a civilian plane an armed guard.”

Another spotter, who took the picture of it landing, recorded it touching down at 4.36pm on Saturday.

The disclosure follows damning findings by the Council of Europe human rights organisation, which accused Tony Blair on Friday of colluding in a CIA operation to run secret prisons in Poland and Romania by allowing the agency to use UK airports.

The study was contradicted on the same day by a report from the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), which concluded that there was no evidence to support the claims.

But the director of the human rights group Liberty revealed that ACPO had admitted it restricted its inquiry to a review of media reports on the issue. (Here’s a link to Liberty and their prior reporting on the rendition flights and also to the blog of Stephen Grey, the U.K. based freelance journalist who first wrote about the “ghost planes” and is keeping track of them).
She accused them of rushing out their ‘cursory’ findings as part of a politically-motivated ’spin’ operation.

The US plane’s arrival was also logged by Touchdown News, a group of enthusiasts who record the movements of military aircraft at RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath.

The group said the plane used its civilian call sign when talking to air traffic control and took off again early on the morning of Sunday June 3, flying east.

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The path that the ‘torture flight’ took

A report last November by a European Parliament committee placed the plane – registration number N964BW – on a list of “companies and aircraft used by the CIA for extraordinary rendition flights”. The plane was previously registered with the Bolivian army, and has been pictured on the ground in the Afghan capital Kabul within the past year.

The American Federal Aviation Authority lists the plane as being operated by two companies, Aviation World Wide Services and a sister company, Presidential Airways.

The European Parliament report describes these as shell companies operating as subsidiaries of Blackwater USA, “an important contractor for the CIA and the US military” which bases the planes in Malta.

Research by a further group, The American Centre for Media and Democracy, claims that flight-tracking internet technology shows the plane landed at least twice in the first six months of 2006 at Camp Peary, the U.S. naval reservation in Virginia known as The Farm and widely alleged to be a CIA training facility.

Tracking technology shows that the plane was en route from Canada to Greenland two days before it was sighted at Mildenhall: the internet software does not extend beyond American airspace, but the expert explained that its route would be consistent with a refuelling stop in the Arctic – it only has a range of about 2,000 miles – followed by a further refuel in East Anglia, before heading to Malta.

From there it could ‘leapfrog’ from US bases in the the former Soviet states bordering Afghanistan on to Kabul.

A recent book on Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill, an American author, described the company as the world’s “most secretive and powerful mercenary firm”, carrying out quasi-military operations on behalf of the U.S. government in Iraq, Afghanistan and within the U.S.

It was founded in 1997 by Erik Prince, a former elite Navy Seal and fundamentalist Christian millionaire who bankrolls far-Right causes.

This newspaper first cast doubt on the Government’s claim to have no knowledge of the CIA’s activities 18 months ago when we published pictures of three planes at Scottish airports which had been linked by human rights activists to rendition.

Flight records showed the planes had been given landing rights by the MoD, despite there being no record of passenger lists or details of the purpose of the flights.

The Council of Europe dossier, compiled by Swiss senator Dick Marty, said the U.S. had used Britain’s help to establish a “global spider’s web” of jails and airports to pursue a war on terror without rules.

It claimed the secret centres had been set up so it could use interrogation techniques amounting to torture which are illegal in the US.

These include “waterboarding” – the dunking of blindfolded suspects so they believe they are drowning – solitary confinement, shackling in confined cells and exposure of naked captives to extremes of heat, cold and noise.

Separately, the Washington Post newspaper has reported that mercenaries working for Blackwater were at the centre of an infamous firefight in Iraq in April 2004 when guarding the U.S. headquarters in Najaf – despite never having applied to operate as a private security company in the country, The report said that in the battle, footage of which circulated on the internet, the troops had opened fire on Shia Iraqi civilians protesting outside, unleashing rounds so rapidly they had to pause every 15 minutes to allow their gun barrels to cool down.

In his book, Scahill claims that the Blackwater employees in the country are using “experimental ammunition’ made of ‘blended metal, which shatter on impact to create untreatable wounds”.

Shami Chakrabati, the director of Liberty, alleges that 210 CIA flights carrying terrorist suspects for possible torture have entered Britain since 2001.

She called for a full investigation, claiming the ACPO probe was unsatisfactory.

“ACPO have admitted to me in a private letter that their investigation amounted to little more than a cursory review of reports on the issue – which they issued, 18 months after I requested it, to coincide with the Council of Europe’s report,” she said.

“Maybe now The Mail on Sunday has produced this photographic evidence they will conduct a proper inquiry.”

An ACPO spokeswoman said: “These planes could be empty – there is no evidence that prisoners were on board.”

She denied Liberty’s claim that their inquiry had been limited and driven by spin.

“There has been a full examination to see if there was any evidence to suggest criminal activity, and there wasn’t,” she said.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: “We have been through the records, and there is no evidence of detainees being rendered through the UK since 1997.”

No one at RAF Mildenhall was available for comment.

Here’s a link to a piece on the Malta stops.

Here’s a piece naming some of the sites of outsourced torture, including Poland and Romania, and in case people in Asia are feeling left out, at Diego Garcia in the Indian ocean.

Again – this story stills need more investigation; one shouldn’t discount the possibility of a hoax or some sort of disinformation to muddy the issue…but it’s certainly worth a proper government investigation, instead of the usual runaround.