Poland will obey the ruling over CIA prisons

According to a decision by the European Court of Human Rights, Poland is also obliged to quickly finish its criminal investigation into the Polish officials who allowed the secret CIA jail to operate in Poland, and to hold them accountable.

Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna confirmed on Wednesday that the government will respect the court's decision.

"We have to do it. It's a question for the coming weeks," Schetyna told a public broadcaster.

The European Court of Human Rights rejected the appeal by the Polish government on Tuesday, thus confirming the ruling that demanded that Poland pay a total of 230,000 euros (about $262,000) to two prisoners who were tortured by the CIA within Polish borders.

No one held accountable

The two al Qaeda suspects, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah, accused Warsaw of aiding and abetting in their mistreatment in 2002-2003, during their imprisonment at a CIA black site in northeastern Poland. The two prisoners, who ended up imprisoned at the US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have not been convicted by the US government.

The investigation of the CIA detention center in Poland has been going on for years, with prosecutors claiming the case is complex and needs time. Lawyers for ex-detainees claim the investigation is being stalled intentionally in order to avoid a politically embarrassing trial that might reach senior Polish officials.

"Poland is required to finally conduct a thorough and effective investigation, make public information concerning its role and hold those responsible to account," Helen Duffy, a lawyer for Zubaydah, said of Tuesday's decision.

"It is remarkable, and an affront to the rule of law, that despite the mass of information now available to us still no one has been held to account for torture," she added.

After the United States government released the Senate report on torture last December, former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and former Prime Minister Leszek Miller admitted for the first time that they knew the CIA had been holding people on Polish soil. However, the two former leaders denied any knowledge about what was happening inside the detention center, code-named Quartz, within the grounds of an intelligence training academy in a Polish forest.

Precedent for others

The court's decision was expected to increase pressure on other US allies in Europe to reveal details about their involvement in the CIA's global program of secret detention after the 9/11 attacks.

Amrit Singh, a lawyer who acted for al-Nashiri, said Tuesday's ruling established a precedent for other countries.

"This judgment sends a message loud and clear that European states that collaborated in the CIA torture program cannot evade accountability," said Singh.

dj/sms (Reuters, dpa, AP)