Portugal involved in Guantanamo transfers: rights group

Guantanamo , Portugal
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Tue Jan 29, 2008 2:15pm ET163

LISBON (Reuters) - British rights group Reprieve said on Tuesday nearly all listed terror suspects flown by the United States to its base in Guantanamo passed through Portuguese territory or airspace, a charge rejected by Portugal.

Reprieve said the report was compiled by comparing flight logs from Portuguese authorities and information from the U.S. Department of Defence with the dates that prisoners arrived at Guantanamo and with testimony from the prisoners.
"Naturally, we repudiate the conclusions that this report draws," said Manuel Lobo Antunes, Portugal's secretary of state for European affairs.

The Reprieve report said 728 prisoners, out of a total 774 that were processed into Guantanamo, came through Portuguese territory or air space. The report said a "significant number" of the prisoners that had passed through Portugal had been tortured in prisons before arriving in Guantanamo.

"The Portuguese government needs to do some serious soul-searching," said Clive Stafford, Reprieve's legal director, in a statement.

"None of these prisoners could have reached Guantanamo - and upwards of six years of abuse - without Portuguese complicity, and there are still several dozen men who may face the death penalty after being rendered by the U.S. through Portuguese jurisdiction," he said.

Portugal's chief prosecutor launched an investigation into the matter last year. A Portuguese member of European Parliament, Ana Gomes, has said that a number of illegal rendition suspects had been transferred to the U.S. base in Guantanamo with stopovers at Portuguese airports.

Amnesty International in Portugal said that while Reprieve's report included different information to its own, the list was worrying.

"Perhaps the most worrying and new fact is that it lists names of people that passed through Portuguese jurisdiction that were subject to torture and other cruel treatment," Amnesty said in a statement.

(Reporting by Axel Bugge, Editing by Matthew Jones)

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2008-01-29T202901Z_01_L29793607_RTRUKOC_0_US-PORTUGAL-GUANTANAMO.xml

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This page contains a single entry by Marga Lacabe published on 31 de Enero 2008 6:01 PM.

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