CIA rendition flights used Palma airport says Amnesty

AMNESTY International published a report in London yesterday in which the organisation maintains that European airports, including Palma's Son San Joan, were used by CIA flights involved in the rendition of suspected terrorists to a third country for questioning or detention. According to AI, Palma and five other Spanish airports were used by the suspect rendition flights. The Gulfstream IV used to fly the kidnapped Egyptian Abu Omar from Germany to Egypt used Spanish airports, including Palma, on eight separate occasions during the period between February 2001 and July 2005. Only last week did Italy's anti-terrorism judge come to Palma to investigate the CIA's activities at Palma airport.
Amnesty has also claimed that, based on flight records, the largest of the six planes being operated by the CIA, a 32-seat Premier Executive Transport Services-owned Boeing 737-7ET call sign N313P (later re-registered N4476s), used Palma on at least eight occasions between November 2002 and September of last year. The plane was photographed sporting each of the call signs. The N313P has been frequently spotted in Afghanistan and, being the largest of the CIA fleet, is believed to have been involved with some of the security agency's biggest rendition operations. Palma was also used by a CIA operated Gulfstream V which paid at least three visits to Palma airport.
What is more, Amnesty claims while it had the partial flight logs for six of the planes, the CIA has been reported to use some 30 leased aircraft.
Amnesty said yesterday that it is impossible to put a figure to the number of secret operations the CIA has carried out and how many suspects have been involved. Amnesty, and anti-terror judges in Italy and Brussels investigating the CIA flghts, have still yet to determine which flights using European airports were carrying terrorist suspects to detention and interrogation centres.