TrustHLT/LaCour huggingface dataset:
GR2 (Government): As an additional point, during the discussions in the Romanian Senate of the said report, it was revealed that Senator Marti had declined all invitations from the committee to visit our country.
GR2 (Government): The arguments presented by Senator Marti with regards to a similar refuse to invitations coming from the Polish authorities to visit the suspicious locations, quote, we are not forensic science experts, and we have no doubts about the capability of those who would have removed any traces of the prisoner's presence, end quote, seem to disagree with the whole purpose of his investigations, and seem to place an insurmountable presumption of guilt on the country suspected of having participated in the CIA program.
GR2 (Government): The government acknowledged the important role played by international organizations, NGOs, and journalists worldwide in uncovering violations of human rights and individual liberties.
GR2 (Government): It is, however, important to stress that there is a key difference between human rights activists or journalists who have direct knowledge of certain facts, and those who receive second-hand information from anonymous sources whose credibility cannot be established or even challenged.
GR2 (Government): As such, we recall that even in the report of the U.S. Senate Committee,
GR2 (Government): it has been concluded that the CIA had leaked inaccurate information regarding the operation of the HPD program, aspect which raises questions about the reliability of the statements of the CIA sources quoted by various reports.
GR2 (Government): Returning to the analysis of the Romanian Senate's report, we kindly ask the Court to consider that, even though its annexes have been classified up to a recent date, at no point did the Romanian authorities try to hide behind a wall of state secrecy and national security.
GR2 (Government): The relevant, though summarized, information contained in the classified annexes was exposed within the report, being available to all the interested parties.
GR2 (Government): In this context, where the Senate's inquiry revealed no element that could be traced in a criminal procedure, such an investigation was initiated immediately after the filing of the criminal complaint by the applicant.
GR2 (Government): It is our opinion that the criminal investigation is thorough, supervised by an independent body, and that it offers the representatives of the victim the possibility to effectively participate in its conduct.
GR2 (Government): From the beginning of the investigation, the public prosecutor's office established an inquiry plan based on the content of the criminal complaint and on information available in the public domain.
GR2 (Government): The vast majority of the activities stated in this plan have already been carried out, the only requests left without an answer being those addressed to the American competent authorities.
GR2 (Government): All the institutions that could hold information about the flights put forward as suspicious by various reports were contacted by the public prosecutor's office and requested to submit all the relevant data.
GR2 (Government): The prosecutor's office took a particular interest in the identification of personnel working at Baniasa Airport on the dates of the flights allegedly used in rendition circuits.
GR2 (Government): Twenty-three witnesses working for the border police, for the private handling agent, Romanian Airport Services, or for the airport security department were heard concerning working procedures, rules of access, and in particular about the end flights.
GR2 (Government): On the basis of the witnesses' statements, the public prosecutor's office is able to determine the procedures to follow in the case of the landing of private non-commercial flights, as well as what was the normal flow of passengers and whether there existed blatant breaches of these procedures in the case of the American registered flights.
GR2 (Government): As an example, a witness working for the Romanian Airport Services stated that, quote, regarding the American flights with the uncalled sign, as in the case of airplanes flying other flags, my duty was to provide refueling, crew transport from the airport to the hotel, catering services, weather reports.
GR2 (Government): Several witnesses identified these flights as having had a technical stop at Baniasa Airport for refueling, and the vast majority of the witnesses stated that the end flights were serviced by the civil handling agent as any normal flight.
GR2 (Government): Even the witnesses who noticed aspects that would suggest that the American flights went through a different procedure completed their declarations by stating that, quote, I have not seen persons embarking, disembarking this aircraft, end quote, or that the different procedure was applied in a single case.
GR2 (Government): At this point, we have to stress that not all the witnesses serviced the same flights and that, therefore, their declarations should not be viewed as contradictory.
GR2 (Government): The criminal investigation took into account all the relevant developments in the public space answering to new information acquired.
GR2 (Government): As such, when one of the witnesses raised questions about the involvement of the Romanian Intelligence Service, the prosecution heard an official from this institution who explained his presence on the airport premises and added that the passengers of these flights went through the regular passenger control flow and that no detainees were disembarked from this aircraft.
GR2 (Government): Also, high officials were called on by the prosecution to clarify their statements about the object of the agreements concluded with the American counterparts in the aftermath of the 9-11 tragedy.
GR2 (Government): Following accusations brought by certain media outlets concerning the possible location in Bucharest at the Orniste site of a secret CIA detention center, the prosecution heard an official working for this institution about the structure of the building and its destination from 2002 onwards.
GR2 (Government): Having regard to the available information, the government expressed their view that the criminal investigation carried out by the public prosecutor is effective and that each possible lead has been considered and evidence amassed in order to establish the facts.
GR2 (Government): The government admitted that the investigation is still pending four years after the filing of the criminal complaint, but kindly asked the courts to analyze the length of the proceedings in the context of the complex nature of the investigation and of the factors that have an impact on its progress and which are beyond the prosecution's control, such as the unsuccessful efforts to obtain relevant information from the American authorities.
GR2 (Government): Lastly, concerning the participation of the applicants' representatives in the criminal investigation, the government recalled its limited scope, as mentioned before, and that according to the Romanian criminal code of procedure, they could have asked to be informed about any act of criminal investigation, as well as to be present when witnesses were interrogated.
GR2 (Government): No such demand was submitted.
GR2 (Government): Madam President, honorable judges, for all the reasons put forward in our written and oral pleadings, we kindly ask the courts to conclude that no evidence permitting to engage the responsibility of the Romanian state was established and to reject the present application as ill-founded.
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (JudgeP): Thank you, Ms. Ludușan.
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (JudgeP): Now I call Ms. Singh.
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (JudgeP): Please, the floor is yours.
AP2 (Applicant): Madam President and members of the court, in a recently declassified document, the applicant, Mr. Al-Nashry, describes his treatment in various CIA prisons in these words, and I
AP2 (Applicant): quote, from the time I was arrested five years ago, they have been torturing me. One time
AP2 (Applicant): they tortured me one way, and another time they tortured me in a different way. By hanging,
AP2 (Applicant): head was up and legs were pointing downwards. I was hung for almost a month. You doing your
AP2 (Applicant): things basically, and you were hung upside down and drowning and hitting the wall. There
AP2 (Applicant): are many scars on my head if I shave my head. If I shave my hair, the scars will become
AP2 (Applicant): obvious. What else do I want to say? I was without clothes. I was sleeping on the floor
AP2 (Applicant): for about a month. Many things happened. They were doing so many things.
AP2 (Applicant): It was in Bucharest in May of 2004 that Mr. Al-Nashry was subjected to rectal feeding
AP2 (Applicant): after he tried to go on a hunger strike. It was here in a secret CIA prison in Bucharest
AP2 (Applicant): that the CIA infused an enema into his large intestines as he lay helpless, face upwards on an incline, his head forced lower than his torso. A December 2014 U.S. Senate Intelligence
AP2 (Applicant): Committee report confirms this. The report describes rectal feeding as a practice applied
AP2 (Applicant): by the CIA on detainees, quote, without evidence of medical necessity, unquote, and as a means of, quote, behavior control, unquote. It was in Bucharest that Mr. Al-Nashry was subjected
AP2 (Applicant): to all of the standard abusive conditions of CIA detention, incommunicado solitary confinement, blindfolds and hooding, force shaving, continuous noise, continuous light, and leg shackling.
AP2 (Applicant): Expert three at the fact-finding hearing recognized this. And it was in Bucharest that during
AP2 (Applicant): the first month of their detention, CIA prisoners were subjected to sleep deprivation, doused with water, and slapped or forced to stand in painful positions.
AP2 (Applicant): It was in Bucharest that Mr. Al-Nashry inevitably faced the constant fear that the previous
AP2 (Applicant): torture inflicted on him in Poland would be inflicted on him again, leaving him in a state of permanent anxiety caused by complete uncertainty about his fate at the hands of the CIA. The
AP2 (Applicant): court expressly recognized this form of ill treatment in Abu Zubaydah versus Poland. All
AP2 (Applicant): of this ill treatment was clearly in violation of Article III of the European Convention.
AP2 (Applicant): But as recognized by the court in Abu Zubaydah versus Poland, it is not necessary for the court to analyze each and every aspect of the applicant's treatment in detention or indeed the physical conditions in which he was detained.
AP2 (Applicant): For the record before this court, and indeed the court's own previous decisions, clearly establish that torture and prisoner abuse was the hallmark, indeed the standard operating procedure of the CIA's secret detention program. The predictability of the program gives sufficient
AP2 (Applicant): grounds to believe that the applicant was abused in Romania as well as after his transfer from there.
AP2 (Applicant): I will answer the court's first three questions. My colleague, Ms. Hatnianu, will address the
AP2 (Applicant): remainder.
AP2 (Applicant): In response to the court's first question, yes, it is established beyond reasonable doubt that Romania hosted a secret CIA prison from 2003 to 2005 and that the applicant, Mr. Alnashiri,
AP2 (Applicant): was secretly detained in that prison.
AP2 (Applicant): The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report and other documentary exhibits before this
AP2 (Applicant): court as well as cogent and credible expert testimony confirm these facts.
AP2 (Applicant): Expert two testified there was no shadow of a doubt that Romania participated in the CIA program.
AP2 (Applicant): Expert three testified that with the exception of the black site in Afghanistan, the Romanian black site operated for the longest period and held more detainees than any other CIA black site.
AP2 (Applicant): Experts three and four confirmed that the applicant was secretly detained in Romania.
AP2 (Applicant): They also confirmed that the wealth of details about detention site black in the U.S. Senate
AP2 (Applicant): report all correspond to details about the Bucharest prison that the CIA code named Brightlight where the applicant was detained.
AP2 (Applicant): As such, the report by itself, authored by no less than the United States' own Senate Intelligence Committee, based on exhaustive review of U.S. government documents, renders
AP2 (Applicant): untenable the Romanian government's claim that there is no evidence of a CIA prison on Romanian territory.
AP2 (Applicant): In response to the court's second and third questions, yes, Mr. Alnashiri's torture and
AP2 (Applicant): secret detention, as well as his transfer from Romania in the face of real risks, can be imputed to the Romanian state because these acts occurred on Romanian territory with the acquiescence and connivance of the Romanian authorities and because Romania failed to fulfill its positive obligations to prevent these acts despite being on notice that they would occur.
AP2 (Applicant): As expert 3 aptly said, it is quite clear that the Romanian authorities not only should have known, but did know of the nature and purpose of the CIA's secret operations on their territory.
AP2 (Applicant): For the evidence before this court demonstrates that it was the Romanian authorities who gave the CIA permission to run a secret prison in Bucharest, it was the Romanian authorities who gave the CIA permission to use dummy flight plans to secretly land rendition planes carrying prisoners in and out of the country, and it was Romanian authorities who gave the CIA extraordinary security cover for their operations in Romania.
AP2 (Applicant): Expert 3 testified that this level of cooperation depended on authorization by the highest levels in the Romanian government.
AP2 (Applicant): And page 97 of the U.S. Senate report confirms the same.
AP2 (Applicant): As experts 3 and 4 testified, Romanian authorities knew the nature and purpose of CIA activities on Romanian territory because the CIA paid Romania millions of dollars as a subsidy to host the prison.
AP2 (Applicant): Moreover, the U.S. Senate report also establishes that it was at the instance of the Romanian
AP2 (Applicant): government that bright light was ultimately closed.
AP2 (Applicant): The Romanian government demanded closure of the CIA prison within hours of publication of a November 2005 Washington Post article disclosing that CIA black sites existed in Eastern Europe.
AP2 (Applicant): This clearly establishes that as long as the CIA prison existed on Romanian territory, it was with the Romanian government's consent.
AP2 (Applicant): In Al-Nashri v. Poland, the court found that CIA rendition operations, and I quote here,
AP2 (Applicant): largely depended on cooperation, assistance, and active involvement of the countries which put at the USA's disposal their airspace, airports for the landing of aircraft transporting CIA prisoners, and last but not least, premises on which the prisoners could be securely detained and interrogated.
AP2 (Applicant): While the interrogations of captured terrorist suspects was the CIA's exclusive responsibility and the local authorities were not to be involved, the cooperation and various forms of assistance of those authorities, such as, for instance, customizing the premises for the CIA's needs, ensuring security, and providing the logistics were the necessary condition for the effective operation of the CIA's secret detention facilities.
AP2 (Applicant): This is true with respect to Romania.
AP2 (Applicant): Just as the court found it inconceivable that Poland did not know about the secret detention of prisoners on its territory, it is simply inconceivable that Romania did not know that it was hosting a secret prison.
AP2 (Applicant): Mr. Al-Nashri was transferred from Romania with the Romanian government's acquiescence
AP2 (Applicant): and connivance in the face of a real risk of further torture, secret detention, a flagrantly unfair trial, and the death penalty.
AP2 (Applicant): This removal, too, was most certainly imputable to the Romanian state.
AP2 (Applicant): Romania knew, through its own agreement with the U.S. to host a prison in Romania, through
AP2 (Applicant): its own operational involvement in CIA rendition operations, and through countless credible sources at the time of Mr. Al-Nashri's transfer, that the U.S. was secretly detaining prisoners
AP2 (Applicant): on Romanian territory and also transferring them to locations, other locations, in the face of real risks.
AP2 (Applicant): In Al-Nashri v. Poland, the court found that by June 2003, it had been widely known that
AP2 (Applicant): the U.S. rendition program had involved secret detention in overseas locations.
AP2 (Applicant): Romania, which enabled Mr. Al-Nashri's transfers off its territory well after June 2003, indeed
AP2 (Applicant): in 2005, knew by then that there were substantial grounds for believing that the applicant faced all of these risks.
AP2 (Applicant): The applicant has established strong, clear, and concordant facts in support of his claims.
AP2 (Applicant): In contrast, the Romanian government has continued to cover up the truth.
AP2 (Applicant): The government has an unprecedented advantage over the applicant.
AP2 (Applicant): It has all the relevant facts in its possession because it entered into an agreement to host a secret CIA prison, because it operationalized that agreement, and because it covered it all up.
AP2 (Applicant): In contrast, Mr. Al-Nashri, still detained at the remote location of Guantanamo Bay,
AP2 (Applicant): is gagged from speaking of his treatment in Romania.
AP2 (Applicant): Whereas here, the events at issue lie wholly or in large part within the exclusive knowledge of the authorities, the burden of proof may be regarded as resting on the authorities to provide a satisfactory and convincing explanation.
AP2 (Applicant): Whereas here, the authorities have failed to provide a convincing explanation and failed to conduct an effective investigation despite being on notice at least since 2005 of the fact that Romania hosted a secret CIA prison, the Court is entitled to draw inferences adverse to the authorities.
AP2 (Applicant): Madam President, this case has profound implications for Mr. Al-Nashri, who is still detained at
AP2 (Applicant): Guantanamo Bay in the face of a real and continuing risk of a flagrantly unfair trial by military commission and the death penalty.
AP2 (Applicant): The Court's case law makes clear that even though Mr. Al-Nashri has been transferred
AP2 (Applicant): from Romanian territory, Romania is under an obligation to use all available means, including diplomatic assurances, to preclude these risks.
AP2 (Applicant): This case also has profound implications for the rule of law in Romania and indeed in many other member states that participated in CIA extraordinary rendition, a practice that entailed countless violations of the most basic rights under the Convention.
AP2 (Applicant): Madam President, it is time for the Court to end the impunity with respect to this practice, which it has rightly found to be anathema to the rule of law.
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (JudgeP): Thank you, Ms. Sink, I call Ms. Hatneanu.
AP1 (Applicant): Madam President, Honorable Members of the Court, I shall further address a procedural violation of the Convention raised by the present case. On the question of the effectiveness
AP1 (Applicant): of the domestic investigation into the applicant's allegation of torture, ill-treatment and secret detention, the applicant strongly contends that the endeavors the Government is presenting as an effective but ongoing investigation come close to the requirements imposed by articles free of the Convention. Allegations regarding Romania's involvement in the CIA
AP1 (Applicant): rendition program were made public as early as 6 November 2005 in a human rights statement which indicated specific information, such as a tail number of a flight used in rendition circuits which landed in Poland and Romania, years, or the fact that a number of persons were detained outside the USA as part of the program, including naming some. The evidence
AP1 (Applicant): heard by the Court during the fact-finding hearing and the 2014 U.S. Senate report demonstrate
AP1 (Applicant): that the disclosures of November 2005 triggered the domestic authorities' specific request to close down the black site operated in Romania, a request that was immediately answered.
AP1 (Applicant): Nevertheless, the Romanian authorities did not initiate any sort of investigation, despite the severity of the allegations. It is the applicant's view that given the serious nature
AP1 (Applicant): of the allegations, as well as the vulnerability of the potential victims, who are in no position to complain themselves, details which were also publicly known, Romania was under the obligation to initiate ex officio investigations apt to clarify all circumstances and possible victims. It is also the applicant's view that such investigations, in order to meet their
AP1 (Applicant): purpose, could only have been conducted by a prosecutor. It would have been of utmost
AP1 (Applicant): importance for the effectiveness of the criminal investigation to be initiated as early as possible. As the events were very recent, and important evidence, such as fresh witnesses'
AP1 (Applicant): testimony, could have been gathered. If such investigations were opened, it would have
AP1 (Applicant): been possible for the domestic authorities to identify the applicant as one of the victims and to establish when he was transferred in and out and what treatment he was subjected to. If independent investigators were able to establish these facts during subsequent
AP1 (Applicant): research, it would have been possible for official investigators as well, as long as there was a will to such purpose and a constant effort to follow the matter.
AP1 (Applicant): Further information on the existence of the program and the involvement of Romania became publicly known in the following years, and inquiries were instituted by the Council of Europe and by the European Parliament, which resulted in detailed reports. For example,
AP1 (Applicant): the DiCmarti reports were quite specific in describing Romania's involvement in the program and in calling for investigation to take place domestically. The only response was a very
AP1 (Applicant): superficial parliamentary investigation, which fell short of all standards under Articles 3 of the Convention. Although the conclusions as made public in 2008 were very drastic in
AP1 (Applicant): denying any involvement of Romania in the CIA program, they still acknowledged certain facts, such as the existence of flights which were previously mentioned as part of the program.
AP1 (Applicant): Nevertheless, no criminal investigation was initiated at that moment either, although under the criminal procedural code enforced at the material time, the prosecutor was able to start such an investigation on its own motion, as was not bound by the findings of the parliamentary investigation. Nor did the mounting evidence made public since, including
AP1 (Applicant): official US acknowledgments of the CIA's free detention program starting as early as 2006, generate a different approach on the part of Romanian authorities. It was only after
AP1 (Applicant): the applicant was able to lodge a formal criminal complaint in 2012 that such an investigation was opened. Actually, if one closely scrutinizes the documents provided by the government,
AP1 (Applicant): it was only after the present application was communicated to the government that the criminal complaint was taken into account and some very meager steps taken. Even so,
AP1 (Applicant): although four years have passed since, little progress has been achieved. It was only the
AP1 (Applicant): entry into force of a new criminal procedural code on 1 February 2014 that forced the prosecution to open the criminal investigation in REM. Otherwise, the file would most probably still
AP1 (Applicant): be in a preparatory phase. At present, the investigation is still pending against persons