EU: The European Parliament's committee of inquiry into renditions by the Central Intelligence Agency will call the Minister for Foreign Affairs to a public hearing in the autumn.
Dermot Ahern will be asked about what the Government knew about 158 CIA flights through Shannon, Dublin and Cork airports between September 12th, 2001, and the end of 2005.
Many of the flights travelled to destinations linked to the illegal transfer of suspects such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Morocco and Egypt, and MEPs will ask what safeguards the Government has put in place to prevent renditions taking place.
Attorney General Rory Brady and president of the Irish Human Rights Commission Maurice Manning will also be asked to answer questions at the public hearings, which are conducted by MEPs.
A draft list of witnesses published by the committee yesterday includes several top British politicians such as foreign secretary Margaret Beckett, home affairs minister John Reid, defence minister Des Browne, the director of MI6, the secret intelligence service, John Scarlett, and the former secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Paul Murphy, who is now chairman of the intelligence and security committee in the House of Commons.
The Spanish and German foreign ministers will also be invited to attend along with the Italian justice minister. Politicians from Poland, Bulgaria and Romania will also be asked to attend.
The parliamentary committee of inquiry says that the focus of its investigation will now shift to the question of whether or not EU states, public officials, persons acting in an official capacity or European Union institutions, have been involved or complicit in illegal deprivation of liberty of individuals, including abduction, rendition, transfer, detention or torture, either by act or omission.
However, the committee will also follow up on its work to date by continuing to gather information on other cases not yet examined, especially as regards some alleged victims and/or their lawyers.
Last week MEPs voted by 389 to 137, with 55 abstentions, in favour of an interim report by the committee, which found that the CIA was indirectly responsible for the "illegal seizure, removal, abduction and detention of terrorist suspects in Europe".
They have given the committee a further six months to continue their investigation.
Earlier this year a separate report by the human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, urged EU states to introduce tougher controls to ensure they can check whether aircraft passing through their territory are being used for illegal purposes.
The report also said that European states needed tougher laws to guarantee oversight of their spy services and better controls over foreign agents on their territory.