The use of Malta in the US Central Intelligence Agency’s highly controversial practice of extraordinary rendition as part of its “war on terror” was brought to the fore again this week.

European Parliament (EP) investigations, meanwhile, have confirmed Malta’s place in the network of renditions, but full investigations into the Maltese aspect were curtailed by a shortage of time and the number of countries it had to investigate, its temporary committee reported earlier this year.

As such, the EP, which had only investigated high profile cases in countries such as Italy, Germany and Poland, concluded that its investigations “are therefore not exhaustive”.

It also said in its conclusions it was, however, “concerned” about stopovers in other countries, such as Malta, and called on such states “to launch adequate investigations into this matter”.

This week the UK’s Daily Mail published photographs of a plane confirmed by the EP as having been used for extraordinary renditions landing in the UK before allegedly setting off again for Malta, where it is based.

The government, however, has to date not made public any information regarding a number of stopovers in Malta by aircraft owned by CIA front companies linked to extraordinary renditions, as reported by this newspaper on several occasions.

Until recently, the Malta link has not been acknowledged by the EP or Council of Europe investigation as a map was drawn up of CIA kidnap and torture flight patterns and secret detention centres across Europe.

“Extraordinary rendition” refers to the US intelligence practice of kidnapping and clandestinely transporting terrorism suspects on private aircraft owned by CIA front companies to secret prisons in countries where torture is used as a routine interrogation technique.

The EP’s ‘Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners’ cites Malta as a base for one of the most notorious CIA contractors, Blackwater Aviation, and as a stopover for planes that carried out high profile renditions of Khaled el-Masri and Abu Omar.

The temporary committee’s last working paper highlights Malta’s link in the CIA network. Firstly, the European Parliament confirms that Malta has been used for stopovers by the planes on at least seven different occasions by six different rendition aircraft.

The EP underscores the fact that, on six of the seven occasions, the flights arrived from or departed to “suspicious locations” in terms of rendition activities. These, according to the EP, included Amman, Jordan, Cairo, Alexandria and Hurghada in Egypt as well as to Tripoli in Libya. The latter has been has been linked to secret negotiations regarding Libya’s nuclear weapon development programme between a CIA-MI6 joint team and their Libyan counterparts in December 2003.

According to the EP paper, the planes have also landed from or left for Northolt Air Base near London; Keflavik, Iceland; Palma, Mallorca; Spain, Ponta Delgada; Portugal; Kuwait; Barcelona and Frankfurt.

The EP report also states that Malta serves as a European base for the Blackwater CASA C-212 wide-body passenger/cargo aircraft, one of which was splashed in the British press this week.

Blackwater, which the report lists as an important contractor for the CIA and the US military, provides personnel and training as well as aviation services through its two subsidiaries: Aviation Worldwide Services Inc. and Presidential Airways. The report goes on to add that the aircraft based in Malta “carry paratroopers and over-sized cargo and can operate from short and unimproved runways. In Europe, Malta is the base for these aircraft”.

But despite the fact that the EP is aware of Malta’s use as a base and stopover point for aircraft known to be used for extraordinary renditions, Malta has not been named and shamed as have other European

countries.

But when the EP set out the agenda for the second half of its investigation, it stated: “Considering the high number of countries involved in the investigations, initially the Temporary Committee should focus on Italy, Poland, Romania, United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and Spain.”

In its final resolution on the issue, the EP notes it “stresses, in view of the powers it was provided with and of the time which it had at its disposal, and the secret nature of the investigated actions, that the Temporary Committee was not put in a position fully to investigate all the cases of abuses and violations falling within its remit and that its conclusions are therefore not exhaustive.”

And the Council of Europe noted that an investigation by the pertinent Maltese authorities stated: “No Maltese public official or other persons acting in an official capacity have been involved by action or omission” in the rendition flights.

The EP, however, emphasises in its resolution it “is concerned about the stopovers made by CIA-operated aircraft in other European countries’ airports and expresses serious concern about the purpose of those flights which came from or were bound for countries linked with extraordinary rendition circuits and the transfer of detainees; encourages the authorities of those European countries to launch adequate investigations into this

matter.”