Polish Prosecutors Investigating Secret CIA Prisons

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The U.S. is hampering Poland's investigation into the secret CIA prison by snubbing repeated requests for vital documents, including the Senate report detailing CIA prison locations and practices, a Polish prosecutor said Saturday.

Published in December, the summary of the report by the U.S. Senate's Intelligence Committee was redacted and did not mention Poland by name, but other facts in it pointed to the country and a secret CIA prison there from 2002-2003, where terror suspects were submitted to harsh treatment.

Piotr Kosmaty, spokesman for the Appeals Prosecutor's Office in Krakow that is doing the investigation, said that Poland immediately asked the U.S. justice authorities for a full version of the document, but has had no response. Previous requests for documents and questioning of the alleged victims — now held in Guantanamo — were ignored. At one point the U.S. authorities said that providing materials would be against U.S. national interests, he said.

"This is undoubtedly hampering the investigation," Kosmaty told The Associated Press.

Human rights groups, European officials and media have reported there were CIA "black sites" in Poland, Romania and Lithuania.

One former Polish official has been charged in the investigation, underway since 2008. Authorizing a foreign prison was against Poland's law.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled last year that Poland violated the rights of terror suspects Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri by allowing the CIA to imprison them and by failing to stop the "torture and inhuman or degrading treatment" of the inmates.

The court ordered Poland to pay compensation to the two men. Warsaw said it would abide by the ruling.

The U.S. report prompted Polish leaders at the time, Aleksander Kwasniewski and Leszek Miller, to admit — after years of denials — that they authorized a prison, but not torture.

"We are continuing our investigation and waiting patiently with the hope that the U.S. will provide the requested assistance," Kosmaty said.