Swiss government presses US for CIA flights information News
Swiss government presses US for CIA flights information

[JURIST] Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said in a newspaper interview [in French] published Sunday that the Swiss government has asked the United States for information about 74 alleged CIA flights through Swiss airspace and several landings of CIA aircraft in Switzerland, although she added she had no proof that the flights were actual renditions [JURIST news archive] or were otherwise illegal. A poll released Sunday by Swiss newspaper SonntagsBlick [media website] meanwhile shows that 75 percent of Swiss citizens want the government to officially protest the use of Swiss airspace to fly suspected terrorists to secret US detention facilities in Europe. Pressure on Swiss officials to act on the renditions issue has increased since the publication earlier this month of an alleged Egyptian government fax [JURIST report] leaked to SonntagsBlick after being intercepted by Swiss intelligence suggesting that 23 Iraqi and Afghan citizens were being held by the CIA at a detention facility in Romania, and that other secret prisons existed in Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria. Swiss senator and rendition investigator Dick Marty endorsed the credibility of the allegations [JURIST report] in a report to the Council of Europe [official website] last month. Reuters has more.