Govt. Investigation Confirms ABC News Report on Secret CIA Prison
Lithuanian Investigators Say State Security Helped Arrange "Black Site" For al-Qaeda Suspects
By MATTHEW COLE and MARK SCHONE
Nov. 30, 2009 —
A Lithuanian government investigation has confirmed an exclusive ABC News report that the CIA operated a secret black site prison in the country, according to a report on Lithuanian television.
According to Lithuania's LNK TV, sources have told investigators that state security was involved in coordinating the construction of the prison, and have also provided the code name of the operation to transport terror detainees to the prison.
Arydas Anusauskas, head of the parliamentary committee investigating the prison, told ABC News he would not comment on the investigation until it is completed. He has previously said the results of the probe will be made public Dec. 22.
On Nov. 18, ABC News revealed the location of a secret prison, where harsh interrogation techniques were allegedly used on accused al-Qaeda terrorists, in a converted horseback riding facility 20 kilometers northeast of the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. Where affluent Lithuanians once rode show horses and sipped coffee at an attached café, the CIA installed a hidden concrete structure where it could hold up to eight "high value detainees" at a time, a current Lithuanian government official and a former CIA official told ABC News.
For many of the residents of this former Soviet state, it is reminiscent of the KGB's secret prisons. "As a Lithuanian," a local woman told ABC News, "I am not very proud of this."
"The activities in that prison were illegal," said John Sifton, a New York attorney whose firm One World Research investigates human rights abuses. "They included various forms of torture, including sleep deprivation, forced standing, painful stress positions."
After ABC News revealed the location of the prison, a top Lithuanian official said that the report was damaging to his country's reputation.
"Obviously, this is not helping Lithuania's image," Foreign Minister Vygaudas Usackas told the Baltic News Service. "Therefore it is vital that we conduct an investigation and clear any doubts." Usackas also warned Lithuanians not to believe "rumors or wild tales."
A "Building Within A Building"
It is not known which suspected al-Qaeda figures were in Lithuania, but 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad was moved out of the CIA's secret prison in Poland just before the Lithuanian facility was opened. According to sources who say they saw the facility, the riding academy originally consisted of an indoor riding area with a red metallic roof, a stable and a cafe. The CIA built a thick concrete wall inside the riding area. Behind the wall, it built what one Lithuanian source called a "building within a building."
On a series of thick concrete pads, it installed what a source called "prefabricated pods" to house prisoners, each separated from the other by five or six feet. Each pod included a shower, a bed and a toilet. Separate cells were constructed for interrogations. The CIA converted much of the rest of the building into garage space. Intelligence officers working at the prison were housed next door in the converted stable.
A local woman who lives near the complex, and who refused to give her name for fear of retribution reports that when she often saw cars with black-tinted windows drive up to the buildings. When a garage door opened, all the lights in the complex would go off until the car had entered the building and the door had closed.
Electrical power for both structures was provided by a 2003 Caterpillar autonomous generator. All the electrical outlets in the renovated structure were 110 volts, meaning they were designed for American appliances. European outlets and appliances typically use 220 volts.
Locals report that English-speaking guards worked at the complex, and often swam in a nearby lake. The guards were rotated every 90 days. Lithuanian officials provided ABC News with the documents of what they called a CIA front company, Elite, LLC, which purchased the property and built the "black site" in 2004. ABC News first reported that Lithuania was one of three eastern European countries, along with Poland and Romania, where the CIA secretly interrogated suspected high-value al-Qaeda terrorists, but until now the precise site had not been confirmed. Read that report here. The CIA purchased the property in March 2004, the same month Lithuania marked its formal admission to NATO. Poland joined NATO in 1999, and Romania joined in 2004.
"The older members, the original 15 members of NATO, would never have said 'yes' to something like this," said former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant. "But the new members were easy to please."
The CIA opened the prison in Sept. 2004, and closed it in Nov. 2005, former CIA officials told ABC News.
The CIA declined to talk about the prison. "The CIA's terrorist interrogation program is over," said CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano. "This agency does not discuss publicly where detention facilities may or may not have been."