Thursday, February 08, 2007

CIA and Black Sites

more on this provocative issue
On the Boeing 737 Business Jet, Khaled el-Masri said, "all the people were in black clothes and black masks. They put earplugs in my ears and a sack over my head." After putting chains on his legs, they led him onto the plane. "They threw me on the floor and injected me with something. I blacked out."—From Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program, Stephen Grey (St. Martin's Press)
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0706,hentoff,75712,2.html
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2835/
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/27516res20061127.html

read more: CIA agents on trial over torture flights
posted Sat Feb 17 2007 http://www.itv.com/news/world_78f5c24acc9baa2d599158ff32429945.html
In addition, a very strong response from the community is in this powerful questioning from a retired law professor to one of the lawyers who are involved in this cover business, which was published here: http://www.wweek.com/wwire/?p=7178:
"Michael Munk, a former political science professor from Portland, asked the Oregon State Bar to continue its investigation of Scott Caplan.
Caplan has refused to tell the Bar how he met the mysterious Leonard T. Bayard, head of a Portland company that owned a plane the CIA used to fly terror suspects to countries that practice torture.
Caplan filed the articles of incorporation for that company, Bayard Foreign Marketing LLC, with the state in 2003. Reporters and human-rights advocates contend it was a CIA shell company and that Bayard does not exist.
Munk asked the Bar last year to investigate whether Caplan violated ethics rules by filing false paperwork. Munk told WW he’s pushing the case to draw attention to the use of torture in the war on terror.
In a Jan. 31 letter to the Bar, Caplan refused to say how he met Bayard or why he was convinced at the time that Bayard was a real person. Caplan says he did nothing wrong but that attorney-client privilege prevents him from discussing the case.
In a letter to the Bar today, Munk fired back, saying Caplan should have publicly cut off representing the company by the end of 2004, when media reports made it clear Bayard was a ghost. Munk asked the Bar to refer the case against Caplan to a professional responsibility board for further review. "

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