Former PM Miller: CIA black site accusations are ‘lies’

Leszek Miller, Tuesday: photo - PAP/Tomasz Gzell.

“If Senator Pinior believes he saw a document with my signature on it, then he is a liar and a scoundrel,” Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) leader Leszek Miller said on Tuesday morning after the European Court of Human Rights announced it was to declassify evidence which is part of an investigation into claims that Poland hosted a CIA prison, where suspected international terrorists were held and tortured as part of the United States ‘war of terror’.

Jozef Pinior,a senator for the ruling Civic Platform party and a member of the European Parliament committee in Poland investigating the secret CIA ‘black site’, said Tuesday morning that there is “enough accumulated evidence to show that there was a CIA prison in Poland, organized with the consent of the government under Leszek Miller”.

“[The prison] existed outside the law: it was illegal,” Senator Pinior told the TVn24 news station.

“The fact that we cooperated with the United States in the fight against terrorism does not mean that we can use illegal methods, banned by the Polish constitution,” the senator said.

Leszek Miller, however, again denied that there were any secret CIA detention centres in Poland and repeated a remark he made two years ago when Senator Pinior first alleged that he had seen signed documents relating to a CIA ‘black site' in north east Poland, saying the politician was a “common liar and a scoundrel”.

Poland’s justice minister, Jaroslaw Gowin said he was “disturbed’ that the human rights court in the Hague would declassify documents relating to the investigation into the allegations.

The court released documents relating to the case of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who claims he was held in Poland and tortured by CIA operatives.

Poland has been investigating the allegations since 2008 but has yet to conclude the probe. (pg)

source: PAP