CIA secret prison in Poland: Leaders break their silence

GlobalPost

After many revelations and political statements, Polish leaders have come closer than ever to acknowledging that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ran a secret interrogation facility for terror suspects in 2002 and 2003 in the Eastern European country, according to the Associated Press. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Thursday that his country has become the "political victim" of leaks from US officials that brought to light aspects of the secret CIA prison.

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Former chief of Poland's intelligence services (UW) Zbigniew Siemiatkowski confirmed earlier this week that prosecutors told him during a January meeting that they were going to lay charges against him for "unlawful deprivation of liberty" and "corporal punishment" against prisoners-of-war in relation to the secret CIA prison, reported Polish site The News. Two prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah, said they had been held in a prison in Poland and have been given "victim status" by prosecutors in Warsaw.

"This may be painful, but concrete evidence that Poland is no longer a country where politicians can fix something under the table and expect it not to [eventually] come out — even if they do so with the world’s greatest superpower," Tusk said when asked for his reaction to the news that a former intelligence services chief will face charges connected to the CIA cover-up, according to The News.

Tusk's statement sounded like an admission that Poland allowed the US to run the secret prison to some, reported the AP. Terror suspects are said to have been subjected to harsh interrogation tactics that human rights groups consider torture while at the Polish prison.

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