US company sued over CIA flights
Rights group says Boeing subsidiary provided flight services for rendition programme.
“They knowingly participated in the extraordinary rendition programme, they knew what its aims were, they knew terrorist suspects were going to be flown to countries where there was substantial likelihood of torture.”
Support services
“We don’t need to know specific details … It’s not our practice to ever inquire about the purpose of a trip” Mike Pound, Jeppesen Dataplan spokesman |
Mike Pound, a spokesman for Jeppesen, said company officials had not yet seen the lawsuit and had no immediate comment.
He said Jeppesen provides support services, rather than the flights themselves, for airlines, private pilots and companies.
“We don’t know the purpose of the trip for which we do a flight plan,” Pound said.
Torture claims
The rights organisation said Mohamed was subjected to two incidents of rendition. In July 2002, he was allegedly flown to Morocco where he was detained for 18 months and tortured by Moroccan intelligence services.
Then, in January 2004, Mohamed was again blindfolded, stripped, and shackled by CIA agents and flown to a secret US detention facility known as the “Dark Prison” in Kabul. He was later transferred to another facility and then to Guantanamo Bay.
Britel was taken from Pakistan to Morocco in May 2002, where he was tortured by Moroccan intelligence agents and remains imprisoned, the ACLU said.
Agiza has allegedly been in jail in Egypt since December 2001 when he was chained, shackled, and drugged by the CIA for a flight from Sweden.
The ACLU also represented Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen who was taken by the CIA from Macedonia to Afghanistan, in a lawsuit against the US government which was dismissed when the “state secrets” privilege was invoked.
Washington has acknowledged the secret transfer of suspects to third countries, but has denied that it tortured them or handed them to countries that did.