EU Lawmakers Accuse Bush, Rice of Lying Over Secret CIA Detention Sites

A European Parliament commission investigating alleged covert CIA detention facilities sharply criticized the United States government on 14 September 2006, with Italian Socialist deputy Claudio Fava accusing President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of deceiving European officials for months about the existence of such prisons.

Bush had acknowledged the previous week, for the first time publicly, that the CIA had held detainees in secret overseas facilities, a practice that numerous governments had previously denied. He also defended the interrogation methods the agency employed.

Portuguese deputy Carlo Coelho, who leads the parliamentary inquiry, said Bush's admission confirmed the commission had been correct to launch its investigation.

German Socialist Wolfgang Kreissl-Doerfer urged EU foreign ministers, gathered in Brussels on Friday, to state plainly whether any such detention sites operated on European territory, suggesting that member-state governments possessed more information than they had disclosed.

Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in September 2006, in its own words.