New flight data unearthed and analysed by Reprieve has revealed glaring holes in the Romanian Parliament’s so-called ‘Inquiry’ into CIA secret detention and rendition flights on Romanian soil.
The Inquiry concluded in 2008 with a flat denial of Romanian involvement in or knowledge of the black site network.
Reprieve investigators have now discovered multiple failures by the Inquiry, conducted by a Romanian Parliamentary Commission led by MEP Norica Nicolai, and have labelled its seven-page report a ‘whitewash’.
Despite reviewing 4000 documents over two years, the Inquiry mysteriously failed to notice key suspicious flights into and out of Romania. The flights have been identified by Reprieve in the course of its investigation into private renditions contractor Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC).
Reprieve can today reveal the following flights ignored by the Inquiry:
- Gulfstream IV with tailnumber N288KA flew from Kabul to Bucharest via Amman on 31 July 2004. It stayed less than 90 minutes in Bucharest before returning to Washington DC via Prague and Gander. CSC budgeted $248,000 for this trip, including $60,000 of “mission specific costs”.
- Gulfstream IV with tailnumber N308AB flew from Romania to Morocco and then on to Kabul and Algeria between 23 Aug. 2004 and 28 Aug. 2004. CSC budgeted $437,000 for this trip, including over $143,000 of “mission specific costs”.
- Gulfstream IV with tailnumber N789DK flew from Romania to Kabul via Amman on 20 Oct. 2004. CSC budgeted a total of $337,000 for this trip.
- Boeing 737 with tailnumber N787WH flew from Morocco to Romania and onwards to Lithuania on 18 Feb. 2005. Leaving Romania, the plane filed a false flight plan giving its destination as Gothenburg, Sweden, but the Lithuanian parliamentary inquiry confirmed its arrival in Lithuania from Romania. CSC paid almost $400,000 for the round trip.
- Gulfstream IV with tailnumber N308AB flew from Romania to Tirana, Albania, arriving at 22:38 on 5 Oct. 2005, where its pilot was instructed to “drop all PAX [passengers]”. N787WH, also contracted by CSC, was already waiting for them and left Tirana soon after, heading to Lithuania, although it had filed a flight plan to Tallinn in nearby Estonia.
- Gulfstream IV with tailnumber N1HC flew from Romania to Amman, arriving just after midnight on 6 Nov. 2005. In Amman, another Gulfstream, N248AB, was waiting for it. This plane then departed for Kabul approximately 30 minutes later.
In December 2011, Associated Press and ARD Panorama revealed that former US intelligence officials had identified a secret CIA prison location in central Bucharest, “hiding in plain sight”. According to their report, the Romanian Inquiry had looked only for detention facilities “at or near” airports – another sign of its restricted and insufficient scope.
Reprieve investigator Crofton Black said: “As more and more data on renditions contracting comes to light, it’s clear that the Romanian inquiry was anything but comprehensive. It’s now evident that many of the probable rendition flights passing through Romania were never even noticed by the Parliamentary Inquiry. CSC’s involvement in Romania in 2004 and 2005 demonstrates a consistent pattern of behaviour which the Romanian Inquiry did not even begin to explore, let alone explain.”
