Court: Romania, Lithuania hosted CIA secret jails

BUCHAREST, Romania — The European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday that Romania and Lithuania allowed the detention and abuse of a Saudi and a Palestinian at secret U.S. prisons.

The Strasbourg, Francebased court said Thursday that Abd al-Rahim Al Nashiri, a Saudi national later sent to Guantanamo Bay, was detained and abused in Romania between September 2003 and October 2005, and urged Romania to investigate and punish perpetrators.

The court concluded that Al-Nashiri was blindfolded, hooded, shackled, kept in solitary confinement, and subjected to loud noise and bright light during his detention at the CIA prison in Romania.

Romania denies hosting such CIA facilities. There was no immediate reaction from the government.

The court also said that Lithuania hosted a secret CIA detention facility from February 2005 to March 2006 where Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian suspected of being a planner for the Sept. 11 attacks, was detained. It ruled that Lithuania allowed him to be moved to another CIA detention site in Afghanistan, “exposing him to further ill-treatment.” He is currently detained at Guantanamo Bay and has not been charged.

The court said Al Nashiri and Zubaydah were both considered “high-value detainees” taken by the CIA at the start of the U.S.-led “war on terror.”

Lithuanian authorities said they would consider appealing the court’s decision and may also investigate the claims again.