{"id":20389,"date":"2024-04-07T04:53:15","date_gmt":"2024-04-07T04:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/07\/a-c-i-a-black-site-remains-a-touchy-subject-for-lithuania\/"},"modified":"2024-04-07T04:53:15","modified_gmt":"2024-04-07T04:53:15","slug":"a-c-i-a-black-site-remains-a-touchy-subject-for-lithuania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/07\/a-c-i-a-black-site-remains-a-touchy-subject-for-lithuania\/","title":{"rendered":"A C.I.A. Black Site Remains a Touchy Subject for Lithuania"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/04\/multimedia\/00lithuania-cia-01-qbfm\/00lithuania-cia-01-qbfm-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"A C.I.A. Black Site Remains a Touchy Subject for Lithuania\" title=\"A C.I.A. Black Site Remains a Touchy Subject for Lithuania\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">First came containers loaded with equipment for a secluded property under renovation on the edge of the forest. It had housed a horseback riding academy and a cafe, but was being reconfigured for a mysterious enterprise.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Then muscular young men appeared, jogging through the trees at strange hours and speaking to one another in English.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Juozas Banevicius, who watched the comings and goings in the tiny settlement of Antaviliai, Lithuania, nearly 20 years ago, recalled thinking it a bit odd that the newcomers would shoo away anyone who came close to the security fence they had put up around their property, which was previously open to the public.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cNobody knew what they were doing inside,\u201d recalled Mr. Banevicius, 66.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The answer has been subjected to intense news media and judicial scrutiny in the years since. It has all pointed to the same conclusion: The village of Antaviliai was home to a secret C.I.A. detention and torture center, one of three so-called black sites that the agency set up in Eastern Europe after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In January, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that a secret prison code-named Site Violet had \u201cbeyond reasonable doubt\u201d been located in Lithuania. It did not name Antaviliai, which is near the capital, Vilnius, but the village is the only place in the country that Lithuanian officials have acknowledged as a site of a former C.I.A. facility \u2014 although they insist it was not a prison.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Site Violet featured in a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.intelligence.senate.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/publications\/CRPT-113srpt288.pdf\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">report by the Senate Intelligence Committee<\/a> in 2014 after an investigation on the C.I.A.\u2019s use of waterboarding and other \u201cenhanced interrogation techniques.\u201d According to the report, the site operated from February 2005 until October 2006, when it closed because of unspecified \u201cmedical issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The court ruling in January concluded that Lithuania had violated the European Convention on Human Rights \u201cbecause of its complicity in the C.I.A. secret detainee program.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Poland, which initially denied hosting a secret American jail known as Site Blue, acknowledged after the Senate investigation that it had let the C.I.A. hold terrorism suspects on its territory. The Polish president at the time, Aleksander Kwasniewski, insisted he was unaware of the harsh techniques used by American interrogators.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">By contrast, multiple court cases and investigations have only reinforced in Lithuania a carapace of official secrecy \u2014 and displays of loyalty to the United States by a vulnerable Baltic country fearful of an increasingly aggressive Russia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Lithuania\u2019s well-documented complicity in C.I.A. torture, said Kestutis Girnius, a historian at Vilnius University, \u201cis not something anyone here wants to talk about. They buried the whole issue at the start and have continued to bury it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A big reason for that, he said, was the dependence of his country, a NATO member sandwiched between Belarus and the heavily militarized Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, on the United States for its security. But, he asked: \u201cDo we really have to be so obsequious? When America says jump, we only ask, \u2018How high?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Also exasperated is Egidijus Kuris, a Lithuanian judge on the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg, France. \u201cThe evidence that there was a prison is obvious. The evidence that there were people there is obvious. There\u2019s no pretending here that it wasn\u2019t,\u201d he said after a ruling against his country in 2018. \u201cAnd yet we still ask, \u2018Do you think there was a prison?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Part of the explanation for this, he suggested, was that nobody in power wanted to dig into what happened to a portion of the millions of dollars provided by the C.I.A. to finance a secret prison in Lithuania that the country\u2019s Parliament found was not properly accounted for. \u201cWhoever pocketed the money in Lithuania must be identified,\u201d Mr. Kuris said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 2009, when <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=iIV9aWNynss\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">ABC News identified Antaviliai<\/a> as a former C.I.A. black site, the Lithuanian Parliament formed a committee to investigate. It concluded that the country\u2019s State Security Department, or V.S.D., had received money for unspecified \u201cjoint actions\u201d and that its accounting had been \u201cinappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">V.S.D. denied this, saying that it had \u201cstrictly\u201d accounted for all funds and that \u201cthere were no millions leaked anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The parliamentary investigation did not reach a conclusion on whether the secret prison had existed. While flight data and other circumstantial evidence indicated that detainees could have been brought into Lithuania secretly, it found, whether this had happened could not be determined.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The closest Lithuania has come to acknowledging that the C.I.A. ran a detention center on its territory was in 2009, when President Dalia Grybauskaite, who took office three years after the Americans had left, said she had \u201cindirect suspicions\u201d of a secret prison.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">If those suspicions were true, she said, \u201cLithuania must cleanse itself, take responsibility and apologize.\u201d It was also time, she added, for the United States \u201cto give answers.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Her comments dismayed the U.S. Embassy in Lithuania, which had been working successfully for years to keep the issue out of the public eye. It wrote in a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/wikileaks.org\/plusd\/cables\/09VILNIUS549_a.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">cable that was later posted online by WikiLeaks<\/a> that the president had \u201cinexplicably given new life to an unsubstantiated story, reflecting a lack of political seasoning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cRather than help quiet a story that does not reflect favorably on Lithuania, her comments instead have suggested that there may be a kernel of truth to the allegations,\u201d the cable said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Since then, officials have stayed silent. Talking about Site Violet would raise questions about the missing money and give material for propaganda to Russia, which delights in pointing out American sins while flaunting its own use of torture, as it did last month with the release of <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/03\/26\/world\/europe\/russia-terror-attack-torture.html\" title=\"\">video footage showing the brutal treatment of suspects<\/a> detained in connection with the terrorist attack near Moscow last month.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In its ruling in January, the European Court in Strasbourg ordered Lithuania to pay 100,000 euros, or about $108,000, to a Saudi citizen who judges determined had been held in the Baltic country. Lithuania\u2019s Justice Ministry said last week that it would comply with the order, saying it was obliged to do so \u201cregardless of whether it agrees or disagrees with the court\u2019s reasoning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The European Court notified Lithuania in March that it had accepted a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/hudoc.echr.coe.int\/fre-press?i=003-7889889-10974920\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">third case relating to Site Violet<\/a>. This was brought by a suspected Qaeda terrorist, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/06\/04\/us\/politics\/un-guantanamo-torture.html?searchResultPosition=1\" title=\"\">Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri,<\/a> who is now detained in the U.S. military prison in Guant\u00e1namo Bay and claims he was held and tortured for five months by the C.I.A. in Lithuania. He won previous cases against Poland and Romania for illegal detention in those countries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Justice Ministry said it planned to challenge the new claims and argue, as it has previously without success, \u201cthat all the evidence regarding the applicant\u2019s detention in Lithuania is indirect and that the standards of proof should be different.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Site Violet in Lithuania was shut down in late 2006 after local security officers, wary of attracting attention, refused to admit to a hospital a C.I.A. detainee, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, who needed treatment for a medical emergency, according to the Senate report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After the C.I.A. left, the property \u2014 free of potentially prying neighbors except for Mr. Banevicius and residents of a nearby old people\u2019s home \u2014 was taken over for a time by the Lithuanian security service, which handed it over to the state property agency. That agency announced in 2022 that it would put the site \u2014 a long, two-story office and living area with a big barn attached at the back \u2014 up for auction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It sits on what has become valuable real estate. Once empty land across a dirt road from the compound is now dotted with recently built homes for wealthy Lithuanians seeking country air and forest calm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Instead of selling the site for redevelopment, however, the property agency decided last year to turn it over to Lithuania\u2019s prison service for use as a training center.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Windows have been added to the barn, where, according to former detainees cited in European court rulings, prisoners were kept shackled in the dark and subjected to sleep deprivation, beatings and waterboarding.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A squall of complaints from Poland and other host countries meant that by 2006, the C.I.A. had been forced to close all but two of its eight black sites overseas \u2014 Site Violet and a second prison in an unnamed country, according to the Senate report, which redacted locations. It put the total number of prisoners at that time at 28.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Banevicius, the neighbor, who was working at the time for the utility company and saw how much water the former equestrian center consumed, said he never saw or heard any evidence of abuse of prisoners. But he always suspected there were more people in the building than the joggers and a handful of others he saw entering.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThey used a lot of water for so few people,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Tomas Dapkus<!-- --> contributed reporting from Vilnius, Lithuania.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/07\/world\/europe\/cia-black-site-lithuania.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First came containers loaded with equipment for a secluded property under renovation on the edge of the forest. It had housed a horseback riding academy and a cafe, but was being reconfigured for a mysterious enterprise. Then muscular young men appeared, jogging through the trees at strange hours and speaking to one another in English. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/04\/multimedia\/00lithuania-cia-01-qbfm\/00lithuania-cia-01-qbfm-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5831,25955,22382,1260,13199,25957,25956],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20389"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20391,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20389\/revisions\/20391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}