Involvement in Extraordinary Renditions and Secret CIA Prison
The airport gained attention in the press in 2005, when it was alleged to be a so-called black site involved in the CIA's network of extraordinary renditions. Terrorist suspects were to be secretly held, and even tortured, in violation of Polish law, by the CIA. Flight records show that an airplane leased by the CIA flying from Kabul to Guantanamo Bay made a stop in Szymany. Officials from the airport have confirmed that some of these flights bypassed normal customs-clearing procedures, and that during the time of these landings, the airport regularly received visits by cars bearing markings associated with the Stare Kiejkuty intelligence training school outside the nearby village of Stare Kiejkuty.
As recently as November, 2006, the European Parliament investigative commission led by Claudio Fava had been told, when asked for the flight logs of 11 specific flights observed to have transited through Szymany, that " have been retained, have been faxed and destroyed, and finally said to have been saved in an unspecified place." The commission report also quotes Szymany officials as confirming six occasions in 2002 and 2003 when Gulfstream jets bearing civilian registration numbers had landed at the airport, bypassing customs clearance. Airport officials had been directly ordered not to approach the aircraft, and vehicles bearing military registration numbers affiliated with the nearby base at Stare Kiejkuty awaited the arrival of each aircraft.
In June 2008 a New York Times article claimed citing unnamed CIA officers that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was held in a secret facility in Poland near Szymany Airport and it was there where the he was interrogated and the waterboarding was applied before Khalid Sheikh Mohammed began to cooperate.
In February 2010 Polish officials recanted previous denials, and admitted that at least six CIA flights passed through Szymany in 2003.
See: Black site
Read more about this topic: Szczytno-Szymany International Airport
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