Jakarta – Speaking to a group of foreign reporters in Washington on Wednesday, vice-national security adviser Ben Rhodes refused to comment on revelation by the Washington Post last week that CIA gave more than US$15 million to Polish intelligence officers in Warsaw, as part of a deal to establish a CIA prison used to detain and torture al-Qaeda suspects in 2002 and 2003.
“I would not like to comment on what is happening in Poland. This is something that concerns the Polish government and Polish justice. Poland has been and remains a close partner of the US in the fight against terrorism, but it is clear that today, in 2014, that we are in a completely different place than we were immediately after the attacks of September 11,” he said.
Poland’s prosecutors are still investigating the allegations and have extended the investigation period for six months. The allegations were first made in 2005 by Human Rights Watch, that Poland had allowed CIA to operate a secret ‘black site’ prison in the north east of the country.
Prosecutors were to report the result of the investigation on February 11, but due to a lack of assistance from the US, among other factors, the investigators called for Attorney General Andrzej Seremet to extend the deadline to June 11.
THENEWS.PL | ABDUL MANAN
TEMPO.CO | MONDAY, 03 FEBRUARY, 2014 | 09:58 WIB