Malta cleared over CIA flights

Malta's name was officially cleared yesterday by a European Parliament committee appointed to investigate claims that the United States, through the CIA, has used various EU member states for illegal rendition flights. Malta had been mentioned as one of the possible EU member states involved. The international press had given details of CIA flights using the airport in Gudja for refuelling US aircraft used on these missions.

In its report, the committee said some EU member states knew of these secret CIA flights over Europe, but Malta is not on that list.

A spokesman for the committee said the European Parliament was extremely satisfied with the response from the Maltese government in this investigation.

All the evidence from the investigations carried out by the Parliament indicated that Malta was not involved in these secret flights and did not know anything about the US plan.

The European Parliament, however, is of a different opinion with regard to other member states. The committee is pointing fingers particularly at the UK, Poland, Italy, Germany and Ireland who, according to the report, knew of the flights and the detention programme, which may have violated EU human rights laws.

When the allegations originally surfaced at the end of 2005, Malta was prompt in denying its involvement through a report drawn by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in which the government stated it had no knowledge of such illegal activity in Malta or its territory.

According to the committee, whose report will now have to be voted upon by the Parliament's plenary next month, over 1,000 covert CIA flights crossed European airspace or stopped at European airports.

It also claims that US bases in Poland might have been used as detention facilities.

The committee also accused EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana of failing to reveal all he knew to the investigating team.