RSS
Romania and Lithuania lost the appeals în ECHR trial on secret CIA prisons
The European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) rejected on Tuesday appeals presented by Romania and Lithuania, which had been sentenced in May for participating in the secret CIA prison program, AFP writes.
The court had already pronounced in favour of prisoners from Guantanamo base, Abd al Rahim al Nachiri (versus Romania) and Abou Zoubaida (versus Lithuania), who said they had been held prisoners in secret prisons in those countries between 2004 and 2006 and suffered various forms of moral and physical violence.
Neither Bucharest, nor Vilnius admitted the existence of secret prisons on their territories and both countries appealed, but European judges unanimously decided to reject the appeal.
The Court concluded that Lithuania hosted a secret CIA prison between February 2005 and March 2006, that Mr Ziubaida was kept prisoner there and the authorities knew that CIA would apply a treatment contrary to the European convention for human rights, ECHR noted.
ECHR recommends Lithuanian authorities to start an investigation as soon as possible and punish the people responsible, if necessary. It also condemned Lithuania to the payment of 100,000 euro to the plaintiff and 30,000 euro for legal expenses.
The Strasbourg Court reached the same conclusions in the case of Abd al Rahim al NAchiri versus Romania, which has to pay 100,000 euro to the plaintiff.
Romania and Lithuania were sentenced by ECHR on Thursday in the case of secret CIA prisons.
The court was informed in 2011 and 2012 by two prisoners from the American prison Guantanamo who declared they had been held in secret CIA prisons in Romania and Lithuania between 2004 and 2006.
The Court showed that Romania had infringed human rights by being an accomplice to the secret CIA prison program.
Infringements concerned: interdiction of torture, the right to freedom and safety, the right to private life and to appeal.
Al Nashiri is suspected of having committed the attempt against USS Cole, when 17 Americans died in Yemen port Aden in 2000. He says he was held in secret in Romania between April 2004 and September 2006.
Abu Zubaida, a Palestinian, was considered one of the main Al Qaeda members upon his arrest. He says he was imprisoned in Lithuania for a year, between February 2005 and MArch 2006.
In February 2015, the Court sentenced Poland for the role played in secret CIA prisons