EU official: No evidence of illegal CIA action

If the BBC reported this, I missed it.

BRUSSELS -- Investigations into reports that US agents shipped prisoners through European airports to secret detention centers have produced no evidence of illegal CIA activities, the European Union's antiterrorism coordinator said yesterday.

The investigations also have not turned up any proof of secret renditions of terror suspects on EU territory, Gijs de Vries told a European Parliament committee investigating the allegations.

And it's not just the EU investigators who haven't found any evidence of wrongdoing by the CIA. Even the human rights groups, who were foaming at the mouth and screaming loudly, haven't found any evidence either.

The European Parliament's probe and a similar one by the continent's leading human rights watchdog are looking into whether US intelligence agents interrogated Al Qaeda suspects at secret prisons in Eastern Europe and transported some on secret flights through Europe.

But so far investigators have not identified any human rights violations, despite more than 50 hours of testimony by human rights activists and individuals who said they were abducted by US intelligence agents, de Vries said.

''We've heard all kinds of allegations, impressions; we've heard also refutations. It's up to your committee to weigh if they are true. It does not appear to be proven beyond reasonable doubt," he said. ''There has not been, to my knowledge, evidence that these illegal renditions have taken place."

I just did a quick search of the BBC website using his name and couldn't find the story.

Then I did a search using "secret renditions" and found 3 pages of stories but not this one. Given that the BBC found the subject important enough to write 3 pages of stories, you'd have thought they would report the outcome of the investigation. But knowing the BBC's anti-Americanism, this is hardly surprising.
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