Poland will clear up 'CIA black site' claims: PM

WARSAW - Agence France-Presse

This picture taken on October 19, 2010 shows the Szczytno-Szymany airport in Szmany. Poland has charged its former spy chief as part of a probe into claims it hosted a CIA "black site" where suspected Al-Qaeda members were allegedly tortured, a newspaper reported on March 28, 2012. AFP photo

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk Thursday pledged to finally resolve a long-running scandal over an alleged US "black site" in the country used to interrogate suspected top Al-Qaeda members.
 
"No-one, whether in Poland or on the other side of the Atlantic, should have a shadow of a doubt that this affair will be resolved," Tusk told reporters.
 
"We're not living in the 19th century, or in some bantustan, and those who are in government must watch over the dignity of the Polish state and act uniquely in line with their conscience and the law, both Polish and international," he added.
 
But he also complained that Poland was a "victim of political indiscretion by some members of the American administration," due to leaks to US media, which exposed the affair several years ago and have kept it bubbling.
 
"We have to remember that this issue went public before it could actually be cleared up," he added.
 
Tusk's remarks came two days after media revelations that Poland's former intelligence service chief, Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, had been charged in an ongoing investigation of a purported US Central Intelligence Agency interrogation facility.
 
Leszek Miller, prime minister from 2001-2004 and now head of a left-wing opposition party, could also reportedly face charges for having approved the alleged facility.
 
The secret lock-up was allegedly located in Kiejkuty in northeast Poland, in 2002-2003.
 
Council of Europe investigators have said in a string of reports since 2007 that the site held several "high-value detainees" for "enhanced interrogation" including torture techniques, and claimed that other secret prisons were also set up in Romania and Lithuania.
 
All three countries have denied the allegations.
 
But Polish campaigners have obtained official records of about seven CIA planes -- five of them carrying passengers -- which landed in 2002 and 2003 at Szymany, a Polish military base in the northeast.
 
Among those thought to have been held in Poland is self-proclaimed 9/11 attacks mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and faces trial at a US military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay.
 
Polish prosecutors launched an investigation in August 2008. "There can be no doubt that Poland is a democratic nation, and this probe is painful, tangible proof of that. Poland will never again be a country where politicians, even if they are working hand-in-hand with the world's most powerful country, can make under-the-table deals," Tusk said.