After ABC News Report of Secret CIA Prison, Head Spy Resigns

Dec. 15, 2009 — -- The head of Lithuanian intelligence resigned Monday in the wake of ABC News' exclusive report that the CIA operated a secret prison for al-Qaeda detainees in 2004 and 2005.

Povilas Malakauskas, head of Lithuania's State Security department, left without prior public notice after two years in the position. Lithuanian media quoted Arydas Anusauskas, head of a parliamentary committee investigating the prison, as saying that the intelligence chief stepped down "in part" because of the government's effort to investigate the details surrounding the CIA facility.

Anusauskas told LNK TV that much of the government's investigation could have been avoided if the intel chief had told the truth about his department's involvement in the CIA program. Anusauskas told ABC News that the resignation was first discussed in September, when Malakauskas refused to provide information to investigators.

On Nov. 18, ABC News revealed the location of the 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."

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.