European Court to Hear CIA ‘Black Site’ Cases

The European Court of Human Rights will examine two cases related to Poland’s cooperation with the CIA’s rendition and interrogation program. Via Reuters:

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has agreed to consider a second case against Poland over allegations it allowed the CIA to run a secret jail on its soil, intensifying pressure on Warsaw to reveal how closely it was involved in the U.S. "war on terror".

The Strasbourg-based court will consider an application from Saudi-born Abu Zubaydah, who alleges that he was held illegally about a decade ago in a CIA-run facility on the grounds of an intelligence training academy in a Polish forest.

His case will be considered alongside one brought earlier by Saudi national Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who says he was held in the same place as part of a CIA program of "extraordinary rendition" to detain and interrogate suspected al Qaeda operatives.

In 2012, the ECHR ruled that the government of Macedonia had to pay damages to Khalid El-Masri, a German national who was arrested (mistakenly) by the authorities and handed to the United States. He spent several months detained in Afghanistan, where he was allegedly tortured.