SAOIRSE32

Guardian

**See also CIA rendition flights,
Seized, held, tortured: six tell same tale and CIA torture jet

Gerard Seenan and Giles Tremlett
Saturday December 10, 2005
The Guardian

Paul last saw the Gulfstream V about 18 months ago. He comes down to Glasgow airport’s planespotters’ club most days. He had not seen the plane before so he marked the serial number down in his book. At the time, he did not think there was anything unusual about the Gulfstream being ushered to a stand away from public view, one that could not be seen from the airport terminal or the club’s prime view.

But that flight this week was at the centre of a transatlantic row that saw the prime minister being put on the spot on the floor of the House of Commons and the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, forced on the defensive during a visit to Europe. The Gulfstream V has been identified as having been used by the CIA for “extraordinary renditions” - abducting terror suspects and taking them to secret prisons around the world where they may be tortured.

The recording of flights by spotters like Paul from places as far afield as Bournemouth and Karachi has unintentionally played a significant role in helping journalists and human rights groups expose the scale of the CIA’s renditions system. But his impact on such international intrigue largely passes Paul by. “It’s not the CIA bit that interests us. You don’t even know who owns the plane when you take down the serial number,” he said, already distracted as something comes in to land through the grey drizzle. “You keep accurate logs, for your own records.”

At the door of the shabby end terrace which houses the Glasgow Airport Aviation Enthusiasts Club, Paul is considering how his hobby got him tangled in such a complex web. “We know now that these planes are run by the CIA, but it’s not something we set out to know,” he said. “I have seen the planes land in daytime and I’ve seen them land at nighttime. You never see anyone get off them. Most of the time they are just coming in to refuel, but the ones coming in at night you would expect to see people getting off. But you don’t - at least, I never have.”

Broadly, planespotters fall into three categories: those who like to take serial numbers, those who like to take photographs, and those who indulge in both.

About 40 miles away, on a mound exposed to wind and rain near the freight terminals of Prestwick airport, Stephen, lugging a lens more commonly used by paparazzi lurking in the undergrowth, is setting up a tripod waiting to see what will land today.

He knows it won’t be as exciting as July, when the planes of G8 leaders and their secret service entourages landed at Prestwick, but he’s hoping for a good day.

“It’s my day off, so I’ve come over to Prestwick, but I’ll go to Glasgow and Edinburgh as well,” he said. “I do it mostly for myself - it’s been a passion since I was child - but I’ll post good photographs on websites too.”

Stephen clicks the shutter. He doesn’t think this one will make airliners.net, his favourite planespotting website. But he’ll add it to the collection of hundreds of other plane photographs.

Despite the particular eccentricity of planespotting - and the obvious capacity for fun-poking - it is not a pastime limited to Britain. In Spain town planner Josep Manchado is part of a small group who gather with their long lenses and foil-wrapped sandwiches at Majorca’s Son Sant Joan airport.

In January last year Mr Manchado saw a Boeing 737 on the airport tarmac. He pressed his camera shutter button while speculating idly that some US millionaire was in town. Then he put the picture of the Boeing (tail fin number N313P) on airliners.net, and forgot about it.

Within a few days Mr Manchado starting getting strange calls and emails. They came from the US and from Sweden. “People were asking me questions about the plane. They obviously weren’t all planespotters because they were asking questions that people who know about planes don’t ask,” he said.

Activists and journalists had become interested in the rendition flights. There were also, however, strange calls. “One man wanted to buy up all the photos. He eventually sent me a form in which he asked for everything, including my home address. I didn’t give it to him and I never heard from him again,” he said.

Months later, he got a call from Germany’s ZDF television. A man called Khalid El-Masri had come to them claiming he had been kidnapped by the CIA from Macedonia, bundled onto a plane and taken off to a prison many hours away. Several months later, after allegedly being tortured, he was flown back and dropped in Albania.

One of the planes thought to be involved was one Mr Manchado had photographed. It was believed that it had flown on to Macedonia that very same day. With the photo in their hand, ZDF reporters were able to persuade Skopje flight control to give them a printout of the flight plan. The aircraft had gone from Palma to Skopje and from there to Baghdad and Kabul. Mr El-Masri’s story, convincingly told but difficult to believe, fitted.

For those prepared to sift through the endless information complied by planespotters and posted on websites, there are many more clues to the CIA’s activities to be found. In Ireland peace campaigners have turned themselves into planespotters.

At Shannon airport Tim Hourigan uses a scanner that allows him to see what air traffic control sees, and he, and other activists, religiously note down the numbers of landing planes. Then, using a combination of Federal Airport Authority Records and planespotting websites, they can track the movements of intelligence planes across the world. “It is a tedious job looking through hundreds of pictures of planes,” says Mr Hourigan, who is not a planespotting enthusiast. “But it allows you to confirm and expose the activities of the CIA and our own government.”

The planespotters have been given first names only, as they asked not to be identified.

BreakingNews.ie

10/12/2005 - 16:01:31

A Dublin man appeared at a special sitting of the Special Criminal Court today in connection with the discovery of a bomb in a car at the Westlink toll bridge on Thursday night.

Martin O’Rourke (aged 22), of Sheepmore Grove, Blanchardstown was charge with the unlawful possession of an improvised explosive device at the Westlink Toll Plaza, Castleknock on Devember 8.

He was also charged with membership of an unlawful organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on the same date.

Detective Garda Brian Cagney of the Special Detective Unit gave evidence of arresting O’ Rourke at Clondalkin Garda Station. The court remanded O’ Rourke in custody until Tuesday next.

Belfast Telegraph

By Michelle Grogan
newsdesk@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
10 December 2005

THE world’s first interactive website promoting the human rights of children was being showcased at the Guildhall in Derry today.

Its aim is to promote children’s rights and tell young people about them in a way that they can understand.

The project launch - said to be the first of its kind anywhere in the world - is part of an event celebrating National Human Rights Day.

Developed by children for children, www.knowurrights.org is a result of a partnership between Derry Children’s Commission, Save the Children and The Nerve Centre.

Funding and expertise as a global children’s rights organisation has been provided by Save the Children.

Belfast Telegraph

Equally angry on two fronts

10 December 2005

THE Equality Commission has come under fire from unionists and republicans over its findings on the religious make-up of Northern Ireland’s public and private sector workforces.

Chief commissioner Bob Collins was accused by Sinn Fein of underplaying Catholic disadvantage in his organisation’s latest report.

But he was also accused by the DUP of being too slow to address the under-representation of Protestants.

According to the Equality Commission’s 15th annual report on the religious composition of the monitored workforce in 2004, the proportions of Protestants and Roman Catholics were 57.7% and 42.3% respectively. This matched the proportions of Protestants and Catholics available for work which was 57.3% and 42.7% respectively.

Protestant employment in the public sector increased by 2.3% during the year (2,283 employees), while the number of Catholics rose by 5.9% (4,284).

The number of Protestants employed in the private sector fell by 0.6% during the year - a net loss of 1,019 employees. Catholics increased their share of jobs by 1.3% overall, a net gain of 1,595 employees.

Mr Collins said it was important to understand the context in which the changes in the workforce had occurred. He said: “During 2004, a growth of Protestant employment in the public sector was offset by a decline in private sector jobs, most notably in manufacturing industry, where Protestants were traditionally strongly represented.”

Sinn Fein Assembly member Catriona Ruane said that while there was disadvantage in both the Protestant and Catholic communities, these problems had to be dealt with on the basis of need.

“The fact remains that across every single indicator of disadvantage and multiple disadvantage Catholics fair far worse,” the South Down MLA added.

“Sinn Fein’s greatest concern is that this is part of a wider agenda driven by the civil service and unionist politicians to rewrite history and, just as seriously, to default on existing equality commitments.”

The DUP’s Gregory Campbell said the commission was much too slow in coming forward with pro-active measures to combat the under-representation of Protestants, particularly in the public sector.

The East Londonderry MP said: “Over a period of many years this area of concern has been raised with them, the figures for recruitment across the public sector demonstrate the nature of the problem, what has not happened, however, is the Commission showing Northern Ireland people what they intend to do to about it.

“It is totally unacceptable that this report mentions the issue they spent so many years denying the existence thereof, and when they do refer to the problem, they attempt to rationalise it rather than dealing with it.

“They must bring forward solutions for those public sector bodies where they have categorical proof of the scale of the problem affecting Protestant under-representation.”

Belfast Telegraph

By Deborah McAleese
newsdesk@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
10 December 2005

A HIGH Court judge is considering whether to award compensation to Ulster prisoners for being forced to “slop out.”

During a two-week legal battle, the first of its kind in Northern Ireland, it was alleged in court that the Prison Service had abused the human rights of inmates at Magilligan Prison by not providing in-cell toilets or washing facilities in the prison’s H-block.

At the end of final submissions yesterday, Mr Justice Girvan reserved judgment to re-examine the evidence.

The court heard claims that slopping out occurs on a daily basis in the prison, despite Parliamentary reassurance last year by former Secretary of State Ian Pearson that daily slopping out of cells is no longer required in any prisons in Northern Ireland.

If the case is successful, many of the province’s most notorious criminals could receive thousands of pounds in compensation for their “degrading” and “humiliating” treatment.

The proceedings were taken by Belfast burglar Justin John Martin, who spent nine months in the prison last year.

Martin, who is currently in Maghaberry Prison, told the court that he was kept in “distressing and humiliating conditions” with only a chamber pot for a toilet and nowhere to wash his hands.

He claimed that if a prison officer was unable to open a cell during lock-up, prisoners had to use a chamber pot as a toilet. This was later emptied in a large basin when the cells were re-opened.

Martin’s solicitor, Garrett Greene, from McCann & McCann Solicitors, said: “Prisoners are in custody as punishment for crimes against society and in order to be rehabilitated back into the community. This does not mean they should also be humiliated and not have access to basic tenets of human rights and dignity.”

However, lawyers for the Prison Service argued that slopping out was not normal practice.

Just days after the legal action was launched last week, all cells in H-block were provided with wash basins.

The practice of slopping-out was banned in English prisons in 1996.

Last year, the Criminal Justice Inspector in Northern Ireland, Kit Chivers, ordered the prison service to implement a wide range of operational changes within Magilligan Prison to improve conditions for prisoners.

A landmark ruling on slopping out was made in Scotland in February. Now, anybody who has to slop out their cells every morning has the potential to sue the Scottish Executive under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Belfast Telegraph

Politicians demand answers over fiasco

By Deborah McAleese
newsdesk@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
10 December 2005

NATIONALIST and unionist politicians have furiously told the Government that it must “come clean” over the collapse of the Stormont spy ring case.

They demanded clarification from the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith and the Director of Public Prosecutions over the case, which led to the suspension of Stormont Assembly and Executive three years ago.

A judge at Belfast Crown Court on Thursday acquitted Sinn Fein official Denis Donaldson, his son-in-law Ciaran Kearney and civil servant William Mackessy after the Public Prosecution Service said it would offer no further evidence.

The three men were arrested in October, 2002 at the time of a police raid on Sinn Fein’s offices at Stormont.

SDLP MLA Alex Attwood urged the PSNI to publicly explain its involvement in the case and its feelings on the decision to acquit the men.

He said: “This case suggests the bad decisions and bad standards that existed around previous decisions in shoot-to-kill, Nelson and Stobie, and still endure. The Attorney-General cannot run for cover. Answers are needed.”

DUP leader Ian Paisley said he was “amazed” that the Secretary of State Peter Hain was “not most anxious to meet with the public representatives who have very serious concerns” over the decision not to proceed with prosecutions in this case.

Mr Paisley said: “I believe that this is an attempt to conceal something so serious that even one of the guarantors of the agreement, (Bertie) Ahern, admits to bewilderment and recalls that there was such evidence at the discovery of the spy-ring that could not be challenged. Talk about a cover-up.”

UUP leader Sir Reg Empey said: “The public is left in limbo, with a cloud of suspicion hanging over the case.”

He said that Dr Paisley was “gradually learning that the abuse he and his party have heaped on the Ulster Unionists now applies to himself”.

“It is not as easy as he thought to prevent a determined government from doing its own thing with republicans.”

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern expressed bafflement over the collapse of the case. Speaking after talks with Tony Blair in Downing Street yesterday, he said: “This brought down the institutions and created huge grief for me and for the Prime Minister. We had hundreds of troops descending on the Stormont building for what we were told at the time was irrefutable evidence. It vanished yesterday with no prosecutions. It was a lot of grief for no prosecutions. I think it is all very interesting and I don’t quite understand.”

www.dannymorrison.ie

Danny Morrison

In his presidential address to the ard fheis of the Workers Party in October Sean Garland taunted the Republican Movement three times when he claimed that by decommissioning its arms the IRA had surrendered. However, his tirade was delivered by Des O’Hagan because Garland himself was in custody having been arrested the previous night at a Belfast restaurant by the PSNI on foot of a US extradition warrant.

The warrant alleges that Garland was in conspiracy with English criminals (who were subsequently convicted and jailed) and the North Korean communist government, and that he used his Workers’ Party position as a front and Official IRA Volunteers as a conduit, to circulate up to a million dollars of counterfeit US currency. Known as superdollars the currency is believed to be printed on highly sophisticated machines by the North Korean government and are of such quality that they often deceive experts.

Last year, BBC’s Panorama, using secret recordings and police undercover footage, did an expose of the counterfeiting cartel which was first discovered twelve years ago when North Korean diplomats - the only people allowed to travel outside the state - were caught passing on the superdollars.

The programme, quoting General Vladimir Uskov of the Russian Interior Police, claimed that Sean Garland had regularly visited the North Korean Embassy in Moscow and that this was the distribution centre for the counterfeit money. However, all of the evidence presented on Panorama was circumstantial.

The programme showed that Terence Silcock, who was sentenced to six years, was a regular visitor to Dublin (booking return flights - but returning by ferry), that he and Garland were in Moscow at the same time and that Silcock telephoned Garland’s mobile number from his Moscow hotel.

One of the gang, Hugh Todd, ‘the Irish courier’ alleged to have brought the dollars from Dublin to Birmingham for distribution and laundering through David Levin, a Russian criminal, told police his boss was called “Sean… He’s a communist, he has communist beliefs which is what the old IRA is.” He also said: “He’s old school … he’s the Colonel-in-Chief of the IRA.”

Garland was arrested in Belfast and was subsequently granted £10,000 bail provided he stayed at the Downpatrick home of Des O’Hagan. His bail conditions were later amended to allow the 71-year-old, who suffers from diabetes, to leave the jurisdiction and go to Navan for medical treatment, near his home.

Last week Garland failed to appear in Belfast court and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

It was either the height of stupidity or cockiness - having been named in Worcester Crown Court and on British television as one of the major players in the conspiracy, and knowing that a US investigation was on his trail - for Sean Garland to have come to Belfast to attend his party’s ard fheis. Maybe cockiness – after all, at the height of the conflict senior Workers Party members often seemed immune from arrest and were certainly bosom drinking pals of RUC detectives and leading figures in the UVF.

Garland has said that he has skipped bail on the grounds that Britain’s extradition treaty with the USA is “grossly unjust” and that in a US court he would not get justice. Clearly, the US authorities, who had the warrant for six months and could have issued it in the South, waited until Garland was in the North and subject to the UK-US Extradition Treaty Act. That act has lower standards of proof than the agreement between Ireland and the US and does not require the requesting country to make a prima facie case.

Undoubtedly, Garland would not receive justice in a US court – neither a fair trial nor in terms of the sentence imposed were he found guilty.

The Irish authorities could now face extradition requests from Britain to have Garland returned to the North or from the USA for his extradition which will certainly force all the political parties in the South to declare their stance. His defence will be relying on the political exception clause even though this has been virtually whittled away over the years in cases involving Irish republicans.

Since his arrest the Workers Party has launched an anti-extradition campaign, which has attracted support from many who never expressed their opposition to extradition in the past.

As a young man Garland was a courageous IRA Volunteer who took part in the Brookeborough raid in 1957 when his comrades Sean South and Feargal O’Hanlon were killed. He became a Marxist in the 1960s and after the split was a leading member of the Sticks.

The first republican killed in a feud was at the hands of the Sticks – IRA Volunteer Charlie Hughes in 1971. When the Sticks split again in 1974 the first republican killed in their feud with the emergent Irish Republican Socialist Party was also at their hands – Hugh Ferguson in 1975.

The Workers Party, which started out as Official Sinn Fein, was run by a bitter, twisted leadership. The group continued to be armed, continued with its paramilitary activities, whilst recognising, supporting and calling upon people to cooperate with the RUC. Its leadership was indulged by the state, certainly in the North. The party supported the broadcasting ban in the North and supported (if not ran) state censorship through Section 31 in the South; opposed political status for prisoners and the hunger strike; demonised Sinn Fein; and supported the extradition of Irish republicans from the southern jurisdiction to the North and to Britain, Holland, Belgium, France and Germany. Indeed, Garland’s predecessor as president of the party, Proinsias De Rossa, in May 1990, asked the Minister for Justice in the Dail, “if he intends taking any steps to reassure public opinion in Northern Ireland that persons suspected of serious offences there will not find refuge in the Republic.”

How ironic.

Internationally, the Workers Party supported Stalinism in the USSR, Soviet imperialism and various dictatorships – including, of course, North Korea where Kim Jong Il’s Superdollar Publications is based. It suffered more splits in the 1990s and in 1998 it split again with a new organisation, a lot closer to original republican sentiment, emerging and exorcising itself of much of the party’s shameful past.

Sean Garland has no chance of getting justice in the USA and it is on that basis – not out of sympathy for the man or his party – that his extradition should be opposed and resisted. Party spokesperson, John Lowry, pompously claimed that the arrest was “politically motivated. It was designed because the Workers Party stand opposed to the war in Iraq, we stand opposed to the policies of the US administration.”

I hadn’t realised how towering and influential a figure Sean Garland was in the anti-war movement.

Perhaps at some stage we could theoretically debate whether the organised distribution of counterfeit USA dollars is in certain circumstances a legitimate, revolutionary act – something akin to robbing a bank without actually going into the bank – or is in all circumstances a criminal act.

Now, who would like to kick off that debate! The not-so-busy Independent Monitoring Commission?