Secret CIA prison in Poland

Szczytno-Szymany airport, where the CIA planes used to land

Sudden twist took place in the criminal case of secret CIA prison in Poland. Prominent activist of the neo-Communist SLD party Zbigniew Siemiątkowski was charged. Ex-Prime Minister Leszek Miller and ex-President Aleksander Kwasniewski are about to face the State Tribunal. The prefix “ex-” before the titles of the said statesmen by no means diminishes the importance of that political scandal or political consequences for acting politicians (and the country itself). Significance of the case for international politics is yet to be estimated.

In fact, Warsaw General Attorney Office brought the charges of exceeding their authority and the violation of international legislation through illegal incarceration and use of torture to the prisoners of war against Siemiątkowski and his deputy Andrzej Derlatka as far back as on the 10^th of January, this year. However, due to the total secrecy of the investigation, Polish media has found this out only recently.

Józef Piner, well-known oppositional activist of socialist era and a member of ruling Donald Tusk’s Civil Platform, has long ago demanded to investigate the conditions of unknown prisoners that are held in captivity of the CIA prison in Poland.

Senator Józef Piner

When the press media accused Polish intelligence superiors, the Senator stood up with a statement, saying that hiding the information about an important case like that from both the society and the legislators is a no lesser scandal than the very fact of establishing such prison in Poland. Siemiątkowski refused to comment the circumstances of the case, explaining it with the matters of national security. Piner, though, has covered his position and the position of the General Attorney Office with carping criticism, saying that secrecy cannot come above the Constitution.

Secret “guests” of the CIA villa

Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Nasiri, whom Americans once considered important Al-Qaeda members, were contained in the secret Polish prison.

Abd al Rakhim al-Nasiri

Abu Zubaydah is not notorious for what he did, but rather for the fact that his interrogations have marked the new standards in the War on Terror that George Bush’s administration imposed after 9/11 attacks. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have personally determined the destiny of that prisoner. It was exactly the case of Zubaydah that triggered the adoption of the U.S. Department of Justice memorandum in Aug 2002, which authorized the CIA to use “non-conventional interrogation techniques” like sleep deprivation, putting prisoners into tight spaces filled with worms, battery and the notorious “water-boarding”. Abu Zubaydah has been water-boarded 84 times within a single month. Saudi Arabian citizen, he has been participating in anti-Israel Palestinian rallies since adolescence. Court of Jordan has sentenced him to death in absentia for arranging the assassination attempts at Israeli and American diplomats. In 1991 Zubaydah went to Afghanistan, joining the Mujahidin. He took part in the civil war and was trained in Al-Qaeda military camps. CIA arrested him in Pakistan in spring of 2002, shooting him in the leg during the process. CIA Director George Tenet got a scolding from President Bush for allowing to give painkillers to wounded Zubaydah. At that time Americans believed him to be the third most important man in Al-Qaeda, one of the closest bin Laden’s proxies. For three years Zubaydah was roamed from one secret prison of Thailand, Afghanistan, Lithuania and Poland to another. In 2005 investigators reported to Langley that the person under investigation did not dispose the information they needed. The response was to use more “water-boarding” interrogations. According to the anonymous employees of Bush administration, the order came personally from Vice President Cheney, who accused the investigators of being less than diligent. Today no CIA official would venture claiming that Abu Zubaydah was an Al-Qaeda member at all. Obama’s administration acknowledged that in 2009, having inherited the notorious Guantanamo camp with hundreds of prisoners from President Bush. No charges were brought against this ill-fortuned man. Ron Saskind, author of the book about War on Terror, believes Zubaydah to suffer from a certain form of mental disorder. Researching his diaries, he discovered that the prisoner was recording his conversations with three inner voices called Hani 1, Hani 2 and Hani 3.

History of Abd al-Nasiri was somewhat more banal. He was also born in Saudi Arabia, but was accused of committing a specific crime — arranging the explosion of the USS Cole battleship in Oct 2000 in Yemenite port of Aden that resulted in death of 17 American sailors. Yemenite Court has sentenced him to death in absentia. Since 2002, after detention in the UAE, he remained under arrest in Guantanamo, having also switched plenty of secret CIA prisons. He has been detained in Poland for several months in 2002–2003, where he also was tortured. U.S. Military Prosecution Office demanded a death penalty for him, but when the President Obama abolished military tribunals, the accusation was dropped. Last year the decision was renounced and the al-Nasiri case was picked up again. Lawyers of the Saudi citizens, albeit not denying his guilt, built the defense around the fact that after all the tortures he had come through, death would be an unfair penalty.

How did former communists make friends with the USA?

It is quite peculiar that all persons involved into the scandal with the secret CIA prison in Poland are former leaders and functionaries of the PZPR (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza — United Polish Labor Party). 55-year-old offender Zbigniew Siemiątkowski is a typical representative of the SLD party establishment.

Zbigniew Siemiątkowski

Having graduated from the University of Warsaw in 1981, Siemiątkowski earned the Masters degree in Political Science, and in 1987 — a Doctorate in Humanities. He joined the PZPR being just a student and in 1999 he joined the SLD. Since 1991 to 2005 he became the Seim deputy and during the martial law period he participated in the famous roundtable of authorities and the opposition as the state expert on political reforms on behalf of General Jaruzelski government. In 1995 he became the campaign spokesman for Aleksander Kwasniewski. After the latter was elected, Siemiątkowski worked in the President’s administration, then — as the National Security Bureau Deputy Chief, Minister of Internal Affairs, the coordinator of Polish special services. On Jun 29, 2002, after rearranging the special services Siemiątkowski headed the Agencja Wywiadu (Polish intelligence agency). In that quality he established the secret CIA prison at Stare Kiejkuty, located besides the picturesque Mazury Lakes in the east of Poland. In the same 2002 Seim Intelligence Supervision Committee accused chief of Polish intelligence of giving false testimony on the notorious case of misuse and embezzlement at Polish oil-refining Orlen concern. In 2005 Siemiątkowski left political scene after the unsuccessful elections and dedicated himself to scientific work. However, politics caught up with him two years later. On the 1^st of August, 2007 Warsaw District Court sentenced him to one year of suspended imprisonment with a 3-year-long probation period for illegal storage of secret intelligence data at home. In 2010 ex-Chief of Polish intelligence was once again tried for the abuse of office in regard of the same Orlen case, whose President Andrzey Majewski was illegally arrested at Siemiątkowski’s instigation. This year trial court convicted him, but the sentence has not come into legal force as of yet due to the filed appeal. The third record of convictions (in the case of CIA secret prison) may end up with an actual imprisonment for the retired intelligence officer.

Aleksander Kwasniewski

Leszek Miller

His colleagues and superiors are to face the trial as well — a constitutional, rather than criminal one, but for an acting politician that’s quite a palpable thing still. There is a peculiar judicial body named the State Tribunal in Poland. The procedure of bringing someone to the constitutional responsibility is sophisticated, but the penalties are severe as well. In 1997 Minister of Foreign Trade Dominik Yastrzemski was sentenced to five-year-long deprivation of a passive voting right. Head of the Main Customs Department of Poland Erzy Zweck got the same penalty. Today many Poles demand to hold the ex-President Aleksander Kwasniewski and the ex-Prime Minister Leszek Miller for the court. Both of them used to head PZPR and its successor SLD, while since the Dec 10, 2011 Miller chaired the party once again.

The party was in power since 2001 to 2005, while its founder Aleksander Kwasniewski has been the President for ten years (since 1995 to 2005). This was exactly the period, when Poland entered NATO and the EU and it were exactly former communists, who have turned Poland into the closest (albeit a “junior”) ally of the United States of America. Truth be told, the reason of the seemingly irrational behavior of neo-communists is quite simple. Having fetched themselves in a complicated situation and being apprehending the accusations of sympathies towards the successor of the USSR (Russia) they did everything they could to prevent their “deeds” of social era from unearthing. Being one of the most corrupted Polish political parties and trying to gag the public opinion, SLD required the maximum electoral support. Hence the flirtation with Polish priesthood and the establishment of a close cooperation with the USA and the EU. That is the reason why Poles fought in Iraq, keep fighting in Afghanistan, and why the secret CIA prison operated beside the Polish Mazury Lakes.

(To be continued)