THE EU: Up to 50 people have been transported illegally on CIA rendition flights since 2001, a European Parliament committee of inquiry said yesterday.
The committee also said it was shifting the emphasis of its inquiry to investigate EU governments' complicity with the US on rendition - the process of kidnapping terrorist suspects for transport abroad.
In an update to journalists on the committee's visit to the US last week, chairman Carlos Coelho said US officials, politicians and media had said that it would have been impossible for the CIA to organise renditions without the knowledge of EU states.
He said these claims would guide the committee in the coming months when senior EU politicians will be questioned by MEPs on what they knew about the CIA flights in Europe.
It is expected that senior Irish politicians, possibly the Minister for Foreign Affairs, will be asked to explain what they know about CIA flights that landed at Shannon airport. But Fianna Fáil MEP Eoin Ryan, a member of the special committee, said that the evidence gathered so far suggested the Government was not complicit in rendition.
Meanwhile, committee rapporteur Claudio Fava gave the first official estimate of the number of people transported on rendition flights.
He said senior US intelligence sources had confirmed that 30 to 50 extraordinary renditions took place.
The committee concluded last month that more than 1,000 CIA flights had transited the EU and that the CIA had been responsible for kidnapping several people and illegally detaining them on EU soil.
But this is the first time that a figure for those subjected to extraordinary rendition has been estimated.