“Writing about CIA prisons in Poland is an invitation for al-Qaeda,” Miller (pictured) remarked yesterday, in an interview with TOK FM radio.
“Euro 2012 is a wonderful occasion for [al-Qaeda] to remind itself of Poland,” he claimed, saying that the staging of the European football championships next year would be a perfect oppotunity for terrorists to attack Poland.
“Lenin used the expression - 'useful idiots',” he expanded after Gazeta Wyborcza published prosecution documents yesterday showing expert opinion which considers that the existence of a CIA prison in Poland during the years 2002 – 2005 broke Poland’s Constitution and international law.
Leszek Miller could find himself being accused of crimes against humanity if the CIA prison allegation turn out to be true, as he was head of the government during the period in question.
Earlier this month, lawyers for Saudi Arabian Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, accused of being the mastermind behind the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, filed a suit against Poland claiming that it had violated the European Convention on Human Rights in allowing him to be inprisoned and tortured in a black site near Szymany military airport in north eastern Poland.
Miller has always denied any knowledge of the alleged prison, as has done president of Poland at the time, Aleksander Kwasniewski.
Miller knew, says MEP
“There is a document with Miller's signature, regulating the functioning of such a centre,” insists Polish socialist MEP Jozef Pinior, however.
Human rights NGOs have called for Poland to be transparent in its state investigation which opened three years ago into the claims.
“We have a modern constitution, which explicitly prohibits torture,” says Adam Bodnar of the Helsinski Foundation for Human Rights.
“The government has to guard the constitution and by allowing the CIA's use of the centre, Polish authorities at least created the conditions for such treatment of detainees,” he added in today’s edition of Gazeta Wyborcza.
Current president, Bronislaw Komorowski, has said that he “wants to finally get to the bottom of the question of the existence of CIA prisons in Poland.” (pg/nh)