Poland admits role in CIA rendition program

The Polish authorities have for the first time admitted their involvement in the CIA's secret program for the rendition of high-level terrorist suspects from Iraq and Afghanistan, it emerged today. After years of stonewalling, Warsaw's air control service confirmed that at least six CIA flights had landed at a disused military air base in northern Poland in 2003. "It is time for the authorities to provide a full accounting of Poland's role in rendition," Adam Bodnar, of the Warsaw-based Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, said. "These flight records reinforce the troubling findings of official European inquiries and global human rights groups, showing complicity with CIA abuse across Europe." For years, European and human rights investigators have believed Poland played a key role in the secret renditions program, which became a human rights scandal for the George Bush administration.