„This is more like a process for the sake of the process. (…) If anyone lacks imagination (what to do – BNS), I can suggest, there are many tasks that really need to be done,“ A. Veryga said to Žinių radijas on Wednesday.
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„What would we achieve with this investigation – is there some desire to spite former politicians, I don’t know who, the former president or someone else? What is the goal here – some search for historical truth,“ he said.
According to the politician, similar historical situations always become clear in one way or another, it is only a matter of time.
After Lithuania lost another case at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the opposition is convinced that a new parliamentary investigation into the CIA prison must be started. Meanwhile, the ruling party believes that answers were provided by previous parliamentary and law enforcement investigations.
The leader of the “Farmers” said that it would be interesting to hear the public opinion on this issue. He expressed doubt that people would campaign for such an investigation.
„It would be interesting to hear the public opinion. I would bet my head that 98% would say don’t waste time on nonsense and go do real work,“ the politician said.
The MEP did not answer whether, in his opinion, such a prison really operated in Lithuania.
„I definitely will not evaluate. I think this is not a matter of religion or belief,“ A. Veryga said.
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BNS wrote that at the beginning of July, the Strasbourg court awarded 30,000 euros to Saudi Arabian citizen Abdu Al Rahim Hussein Al-Nashiri for illegal detention two decades ago in a secret American prison in Lithuania and ordered the Lithuanian authorities to contact Washington to ensure that the terrorism suspect would not be sentenced to death.
This was the third similar ECHR decision in applicants’ cases against Lithuania.
The first report about a possible CIA detention center operating in Lithuania was made in 2009 by the US television channel “ABC News.” It reported that eight terrorism suspects were detained near Vilnius in 2004–2005.
In the same year, the Seimas National Security and Defense Committee conducted a parliamentary investigation but did not establish whether detainees were brought to Lithuania, though it noted that conditions for transportation existed. The parliamentary investigation identified two sites in Vilnius and near the capital in Antaviliai, where rooms for detainees might have been set up. Several CIA-related flights to Vilnius and Palanga between 2003 and 2006 were also identified.
Prosecutors had also started an investigation but discontinued it in 2011 after failing to obtain data that the building in Antaviliai “was related to the detention of persons,” and “the factual data obtained during the pre-trial investigation and all witnesses interviewed support a different purpose and use of the building.” It was also not established that terrorism suspects were illegally detained there.
In 2015, the pre-trial investigation was renewed by merging it with an investigation into illegal human trafficking across the state border, considering the 2014 declassified US Senate committee report.
Lithuania explained in ECHR cases that the premises in Antaviliai, near Vilnius, were not a prison but an intelligence support center. The country stated that the planes suspected of carrying detainees to Lithuania transported communication equipment instead.
Meanwhile, the 2014 US Senate report on CIA torture of suspected terrorists in secret detention centers mentions a center called “the violet” operating in 2005–2006. The specific country and officials are classified in the document, but human rights defenders believe this center operated in Lithuania, in Antaviliai near Vilnius.
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