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Anti-Empire
Human Rights in IrelandA Blog About Human Rights
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Potential war criminals transiting Shannon international |
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news report
 Tuesday November 11, 2008 18:28 by Edward Horgan
 PEACE Vigil in the Rain On Monday 10 November US a US Air force executive jet, reg no 40109, a learjet 35 or a C 21A in military terminology, was being refuelled at Shannon airport, while being protected by a special garda escort. We dont yet know who the passengers were, but such luxuary transports are not for one star privates, they are normally reserved for one star generals and upwards. Some of these generals have been guilty of war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is most likely that the Gardai did not search the aircraft to ascertain if any war criminals were on board. On Sunday 9 November up to 30 peace activists attended the monthly peace vigil at Shannon airport in appalling weather conditions. It was noted that former Garda Sergeant John O'Sullivan was back on duty at Shannon as an Inspector after his promotional exile in Dublin. John has been one of the Gardai at Shannon who managed to do his job without the vindictiveness that has been displayed by several of his superiors in the past. During the pouring rain, an oak tree was planted as a mark of respect to prisoners who have been tortured in Guantanamo and elsewhere, and in particular in recognition of the suffering inflicted on Murat Kurnaz, who visited Shannon earlier this year after spending almost five years in US custody even though he was innocent of any crime. This tree planting was also a symbolic acknowledgement of the support that Murat got from his mother who campaigned for his release throughout his imprisonment and torture. Her name is Rabye Kurnaz, and Shannon peace activists wished to acknowledge her strength of character in challenging the German and US governments over the unjustified and unlawful imprisonment and torture of her son.
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Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10could Edward Horgan pls contact me directly at lindaorafferty@hotmail.com
The question has naturally arisen again: What evidence do we have that Shannon is involved in the CIA’s “extraordinary renditions” – i.e. abductions for purposes of torture? Here are some of the key details to present to politicians, journalists and other concerned citizens:
From working documents of the European parliament’s TDIP committee, we know that the Central Intelligence Agency used aircraft no. N379P for at least six extraordinary renditions - i.e. kidnappings for purposes of torture: Mohammed el-Zari, Ahmed Agiza, Abou Elkassim Britel, Binyam Mohammed, Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna. (Note more recent details re a seventh victim below.)
Eurocontrol documents (flight logs and payment data) obtained by TDIP show that N379P flew from Islamabad to Rabat on 21 July, 2002, and it landed at Shannon at 7.21 am on 22 July, 2002. It was probably carrying Binyam Mohammed when it landed at Rabat on 21 July, and detectives might have found forensic evidence of that kidnapping trip if they had searched it when it landed at Shannon on 22 July.
Similarly, Eurocontrol documents show that CIA jet N313P transited at Shannon on 16 January, 2004, when it was probably on its way to transport Binyam Mohammed from Rabat to Kabul on 22 January.
And Gulfstream IV jet registered as N85VM probably carried the CIA's torture victim Abu Omar from Ramstein to Cairo on 17 February, 2003, and transited at Shannon on 18 February, on its way back to Washington. The Italian police are still looking to arrest Abu Omar's kidnappers, and the Italian authorities will prosecute them if they turn up.
To read further details published by the TDIP committee, please look in a search engine for the following:
Working document number 7 on extraordinary renditions
Working document number 8 on the companies linked to CIA
http://tinyurl.com/55o4fu
Use CTRL-F to find key terms such as “Shannon” or “N379P”
More recently, Amnesty International has reported that N379P was used in a seventh abduction. From a press release published on amnesty.ie in March 2008:
Khaled al-Maqtari was detained by US army soldiers in Fallujah, Iraq, in January 2004. He was transferred to the infamous Abu Ghraib prison as an unregistered "ghost detainee".
While there he says he was subjected to repeated beatings, induced hypothermia and sleep deprivation by American and British interrogators. At one point he was suspended by his feet, with his arms still cuffed behind his back, and a pulley was used to lower him up and down while he was beaten by guards.
After nine days of interrogation in Abu Ghraib, Khaled al-Maqtari was taken by plane to a secret CIA detention facility in Afghanistan, were he was held for a further three months. Flight records obtained by Amnesty International corroborated that a jet operated by a CIA front company left Baghdad International Airport nine days after his arrest, heading for Khwaja Rawash airport in Kabul.
"This same jet, registered at the time as N379P, had left Shannon Airport on 20 January 2004 en route to Baghdad where it collected Mr al-Maqtari," Mr O'Gorman added.
http://tinyurl.com/67jsym
The Irish Times recently reported that Irish government politicians thought there was no precedent for a European country searching CIA flights: "... it was also argued that no European country was searching transiting aircraft to and from friendly states."
This is untrue. Customs officials in Iceland - a European country, and a member of NATO since 1949 - searches all international flights for illegal prisoners and torture victims of the CIA.
Here's a quote from a report on the Danish national TV channel, dated 3 February 2008:
Island forsøger at stoppe CIA-trafik
...
Det islandske toldvæsen kontrollerer nu blandt andet samtlige udenrigsfly, der lander i Island. En tolder går fysisk igennem hvert fly og kontrollerer, hvad der er i det, og om der er overenstemmelse med det formål man har opgivet for rejsen.
http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Udland/2008/02/03/161506.htm
Translation:
"Iceland attempts to stop CIA traffic
...
Among other things, the Icelandic customs service now checks all international flights that land in Iceland. A customs official goes physically through every plane and checks what is in it and whether it is in accordance with the purpose stated before the voyage."
As this report has been there unchallenged since February, I see little room to doubt its veracity. If it were untrue, the Icelandic government might have denied it and DR would have retracted it. As late as last week, a spokesperson for the Icelandic department of foreign affairs told me he remembered the report, and although he could not confirm the customs officials search ALL international flights, he suggested it might well be true.
When the CIA took Binyam Mohamed,
They were just following orders
From President Bush, Gee Dubya. Damn it!
Just following orders.
Just following orders, oh!
Just following orders.
They flew him from Kabul to Rabat,
Just following orders.
The polis beat him, rat-a-tat-tat,
Just following orders.
They razor-cut his private organs,
Just following orders.
For all the cries of the Cregans and Horgans,
They were just following orders.
Binyam Mohamed was taken to Gitmo,
Just following orders.
And there he was beaten con gusto y ritmo,
Just following orders.
Just following orders, oh!
Just following orders.
379P refuelled at Shannon,
Just following orders,
And more jets despite the protests of Lannon!
Just following orders.
When the ground crew service the jets,
They are just following orders.
Binyam Mohamed is suffering yet,
But they’re just following orders.
The APO’s stand idly by,
Just following orders.
And when the Garda turns a blind eye,
It’s just following orders.
Just following orders, oh!
Just following orders.
The CIA flies over our borders,
Just following orders,
While the guards accuse us of public disorders,
Just following orders.
They’re just following orders, oh!
Just following orders.
Ennis court adjourns case against CIA plane watcher Edward Horgan
In Ennis district court today Thursday 13 November, Judge Mangan adjourned a charge of obstructing/impeding an airport fire officer, brought against the former UN peacekeeper and anti-torture campaigner, Edward Horgan, of Castletroy, Co. Limerick. Following submissions that Horgan’s summons cited the wrong act and did not come as stated from the Director of Public Prosecutions, the case was adjourned to 8 January.
Horgan went to the airport on 18 June 2008, on a tip-off that Learjet N54PA was due to arrive from Florida via Newfoundland. Flight logs showed that N54PA had landed several times, including 3 June 2008, at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
When it landed, Horgan walked into the security office to demand that the aircraft be searched for prisoners, and its crew questioned about recent and past activities, and insisted on remaining while the plane was being refuelled in order to confirm whether Gardai searched the aircraft or not.
Although no attempt was made to arrest Horgan at the time, a summons was subsequently issued in what he sees as harrassment and abuse of the courts.
Please read the full press release here:
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/89857
Shannon airport is likely to be used for nefarious purposes over the comming months as war materials and prisoners are likely to be transported in various directions to and from the United States in attempts to cover the tracks of US Bush Administration war crimes. Increased vigilance is needed to identify suspect aircraft at Shannon.
We are seeing an increase in unusual aircraft in recent times, as well as some of the usual suspects such as OMNI Air troop carriers and known CIA associated planes that make frequent trips to Guantanamo.
Air ambulances of various types also pass through. These may not be as innocent as they seem. Many prisoners are tortured repeatedly almost to the point of death and sometimes beyond that point, in black hole prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. Some of these prisoners can only be transported to Guantanamo in air ambulances due to their injuries caused by torture.
If anyone has further information of interest on the following two planes seen at Shannon on 13 Nov 08, please let us know. They may be harmless commerical traffic or otherwise.
N66ZB, Boeing 737-74U previous owned by Disney corporation and also by Shamrock Air (should this read Black Shamrock??), and now owned by Wells Fargo Bank North West. Several other aircraft registered with Wells Fargo Bank have been associated with CIA rendition, but Wells Fargo Bank and other such financial corporations are used to register private and other aircraft for tax and other purposes. Interestingly, the owners of this aircraft have restricted access to tracking of its flight plans, as the CIA normally does.
N70LJ, is a Learjet 36A registered to Jet ICU Leasing Inc., Florida. In the above photo it seems to have an unusually wide door.
If you have time to spare, we need help to monitor sucpicious aircraft being refuelled at Shannon airport.
N66ZB at Shannon 13 Nov 08
N70LJ at Shannon 13 Nov 08
People who don't like the way things are developing at this great civil airport could take to singing The Hammer Song for inspiration:
If I Had a Hammer
If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening, all over this land
I'd hammer out danger, I'd hammer out a warning
I'd hammer out the love between my brothers and sisters
All over this land
If I had a bell, I'd ring it in the morning ...
If I had a song, I'd sing it in the morning ...
Well I've got a hammer, and I've got a bell
And I've got a song to sing, all over this land
It's the hammer of justice, It's the bell of freedom
It's the song about the love between my brothers and sisters
All over this land
Peter Paul, and Mary sing it at the 1963 Newport Festival here -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UKvpONl3No
Edward is quite right to query the presence of N70LJ in Shannon. There are layers of cover-up and deception designed to enable CIA-used planes to travel around the world on clandestine activities, and Shannon has been shown to be one of their favoured stopovers. One of their clandestine activities is the torturous and illegal renditions programme, and there is ample evidence to show that Shannon is part of that programme. Those of us who examine the flight arrivals at the airport are not being paranoid or sensationalist - we are legitimately examining the complicity of the Irish authorities in an extensive CIA programme that violates Irish as well as international law.
In 2005, Aero-News.Net (the brainchild of US Aviator magazine Publisher and Aviation Safety Advocate Jim Campbell ) stated that discussed false database entries and unlisted numbers for CIA planes ("Plane Spotters Embarrass Spooks" Thu, 03 Mar '05). Around the same time, Phillip H. Morse, a minority partner of the Boston Red Sox, confirmed that his private jet has been chartered to the CIA and said he was aware that it had been flown to Guantanamo Bay (see http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/03/21/c...irms/). The plane's charter agent is Richmor Aviation in Hudson.
So planes registered to just-about-anybody could be part of the renditions programme. N70LJ could be a torture plane, and in fact Edward is not the first to wonder about its real purpose. On 29 Aug (this year) a Flightaware charter member logged the following question:
Does anyone have an idea on how a plane (N70LJ) could just end up in another city with no known flight plan. N70LJ is an air ambulance service that fly's as a lifeguard flight often, It is based at KBKV [Hernando County Airport] along with 2 other LJ's. As you can see it's last arr at KBKV was 8/4 from Bangor, then it just shows up at St Johns for a flight to Shannon. KBKV does not show any other departures under a different call sign and I didnt see CYYT [St. John's Int'l Airport] with any arrivals that it might have been. ???
When will our government open its eyes to what is going on at Shannon? And when will the Green Party stop congratulating themselves when a cabinet sub-committee is formed and start demanding that planes like N70LJ are examined - and if found to be an "accommodation" for CIA torture that they crew are immediately arrested?
Incidentally, the the co-owner of Richmor Aviation, Mahlon Richards, said he believes Morse's plane was used to transport only federal workers and said his company had no information that it was ever used to US transport detainees (a much more gentle word than torturees, isn't it?). If nobody tells him, his conscience is clear, it seems. And likewise, perhaps our governments' thinks that its conscience (if it has one) is clear ... if they can get the Gardai to obstruct the flow of any information that might indicate a plane on Irish soil was involved in torture they can sleep in their beds at night telling themselves they didn't sanction torture.
But they did allow it to happen on Irish soil. And that is a a crime they should pay for.
N70LJ is an air ambulance, owned by Jet ICU. ICU = Intensive Care Unit. If you google it you will find numerous references to it carrying critically ill civilians to better care or for repartriation, and a few indymedia.ie references to it being a torture jet.
It is possible that N70LJ is many things - in a 'Flight Aware' posting dated for 2005, the following curious comment is logged: "Does anyone have an idea on how a plane (N70LJ) could just end up in another city with no known flight plan. N70LJ is an air ambulance service that fly's as a lifeguard flight often, It is based at KBKV along with 2 other LJ's. As you can see it's last arr at KBKV was 8/4 from Bangor, then it just shows up at St Johns for a flight to Shannon. . . ." In truth, it is an interesting question and at least illustrates that she is no stranger to Shannon airport.