[NYTr] Boeing subsidiary brass admitted role in CIA renditions

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Steven L. Robinson - activ-l

AP via SF Chronicle - Dec 14, 2007
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/12/14/national/a204505S15.DTL


Former employee: Boeing subsidiary brass admitted role in CIA renditions

By Jason Dearen
The Associated Press

San Francisco -- A Boeing subsidiary accused of helping the CIA
secretly fly terrorism suspects to be tortured in overseas prisons
openly acknowledged its role in the "extraordinary rendition" program,
a former employee of the smaller company said in court papers Friday.

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal suit claiming
Jeppesen Dataplan Inc. enabled the clandestine transportation of five
terrorism suspects to overseas locations where they were subjected to
"forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment."

The U.S. government has asked a federal judge to throw out the lawsuit
on the basis that trying the case would result in the release of
sensitive state secrets.

The ACLU countered in its filing Friday that the clandestine transfer of
terrorism suspects to U.S.-run overseas prisons or foreign intelligence
agencies, known as extraordinary rendition, is already a matter of
public record "confirmed by documentary evidence and eyewitness
testimony," along with Federal Aviation Administration records.

The ACLU also provided the testimony of a former Jeppesen employee who
said the company openly spoke of its role in extraordinary rendition.

According to the declaration of Sean Belcher, who worked briefly for
Jeppesen as a technical writer in San Jose, Calif. in 2006, the
director of Jeppesen's International Trip Planning Service, Bob Overby,
told new employees during an introductory breakfast that "we do all the
extraordinary rendition flights."

When some employees looked puzzled at the statement, Overby added that
he was referring to "torture flights," according to Belcher's
declaration.

According to Belcher, Overby then said he understood some employees
were not comfortable with that aspect of Jeppesen's business but added
"that's just the way it is, we're doing them," and that the rendition
flights paid very well.

The five detainees have claimed through their family and lawyers that
they have been tortured and abused against universally accepted legal
standards.

The cases were filed based on the alleged renditions of Binyam Mohamed,
an Ethiopian citizen, in July 2002 and January 2004; Elkassim Britel, an
Italian citizen, in May 2002; and Ahmed Agiza, an Egyptian citizen, in
December 2001; Bisher Al-Rawi, an Iraqi citizen in December 2002 and
Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah, a Yemeni citizen, in October 2003 and
April 2004.

A phone call by The Associated Press seeking comment from Jeppesen was
not immediately returned late Friday.