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Poland 'helped in CIA rendition', European Court rules | |
(35 minutes later) | |
Poland broke the European human rights convention in helping the CIA to render two terror suspects, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled. | |
The judges said Poland had co-operated with the illegal transfers in 2002-2003, allowing two suspects to be interrogated on its territory. | |
It is the first such case concerning a CIA "black site" prison in Poland. | |
Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian, was arrested in Pakistan and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi, in Dubai. | |
The court held that "the treatment to which the applicants had been subjected by the CIA during their detention in Poland had amounted to torture". | |
The two men are currently held at the US Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. | |
They complained to the court that they had been tortured at a US-run facility in Poland called Stare Kiejkuty, where Nashiri was held for six months and Abu Zubaydah for nine. | |
The ECHR, in its press release on the case, said that "the Polish state, on account of its acquiescence and connivance in the HVD [extraordinary rendition] Programme, had to be regarded as responsible for the violation of the applicants' rights committed on its territory". | |
It added that Poland had been aware that the men's transfer to and from its territory had been carried out by the process of "extraordinary rendition". | |
"Consequently, by enabling the CIA to transfer the applicants to its other secret detention facilities, the Polish authorities exposed them to a foreseeable serious risk of further ill-treatment and conditions of detention in breach of Article Three [prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment]," it said. | |
The court ordered the Polish government to pay each of the men 100,000 euros (£80,000; $135,000) in damages. It also awarded Abu Zubaydah 30,000 euros to cover his costs. |