TrustHLT/LaCour huggingface dataset:
AP4 (Applicant): It was Polish officials who guided the planes into land and who cleared the runway and secured the perimeter and grounds of Shimani Airport so that detainees like Mr. El-Nashry could secretly
AP4 (Applicant): be offloaded into vans bound for the secret prison.
AP4 (Applicant): The court had heard expert testimony yesterday that the director of Shimani Airport provided significant information with respect to abnormal procedure allowed for rendition aircraft.
AP4 (Applicant): The 2007 Marti report shows that Polish officials provided extraordinary physical security by setting up buffer zones around the CIA's detainee operations.
AP4 (Applicant): In the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency, Polish officials assisted in disguising the existence and exact movements of incoming CIA rendition flights.
AP4 (Applicant): In the Polish border guard, they ensured that CIA flights were exempt from normal procedures for incoming foreign passengers.
AP4 (Applicant): In the National Customs Office, they resolved irregularities in the payment of fees related to CIA operations.
AP4 (Applicant): The court had heard expert testimony yesterday that after a rendition operation, the day after such an operation, Polish airport employees were paid cash at a rate far higher than the usual rate.
AP4 (Applicant): The removal of Mr. El-Nashry from Poland
AP4 (Applicant): in the face of a risk of further ill treatment, arbitrary detention, a flagrantly unfair trial, and the death penalty is also imputable to the Polish state.
AP4 (Applicant): For it was Polish officials who assisted the CIA in secretly transporting him out of Poland, despite the fact that their own involvement in the extraordinary rendition program, as well as numerous credible sources, placed the Polish government on notice of the risks at the time.
AP4 (Applicant): As the court's decision in Al-Syadoun makes clear, even though Mr. El-Nashry has been transferred
AP4 (Applicant): from Polish territory, Poland is under an obligation to use all available means, including diplomatic interventions, to ensure that the United States does not subject him to the death penalty.
AP4 (Applicant): Madam President, this case has profound implications for Mr. El-Nashry, who is now detained at Guantanamo Bay.
AP4 (Applicant): He is gagged from speaking publicly of his own torture in Poland, because the United States takes the remarkable position that disclosure of his own memories, observations, and experiences of what happened to him would reveal classified sources and methods.
AP4 (Applicant): In addition, US regulations prevent his US lawyer, Ms. Hollander, who is also counsel in this case,
AP4 (Applicant): from addressing the issues before this court.
AP4 (Applicant): In addition to having endured years of secret detention and torture, Mr. El-Nashry now faces the prospect
AP4 (Applicant): of the death penalty, following an unfair trial by military commission.
AP4 (Applicant): This court's findings will be critical for his trial, which is currently scheduled to begin on 2nd September 2014.
AP4 (Applicant): More generally, this case has profound implications for several Council of Europe member states, which participated in the Extraordinary Rendition Program in various ways, including by hosting secret CIA prisons for torture that the US did not see fit to conduct on its own territory.
AP4 (Applicant): Significantly, Romania and Lithuania also have cases pending in the court for hosting secret CIA prisons.
AP4 (Applicant): Madam President, in the face of efforts to draw a veil over these abuses, this case presents an opportunity for the court to break the conspiracy of silence, an opportunity to uphold the rule of law.
Ineta Ziemele (JudgeP): I think I call Mr. Pietrzak.
AP1 (Applicant): Madam President and members of the court, Poland has failed to conduct an effective investigation or provide an effective remedy for Mr. Al-Nashry's torture,
AP1 (Applicant): secret detention, and rendition.
AP1 (Applicant): Poland has also failed to cooperate with the court.
AP1 (Applicant): First, the pending Polish investigation is not prompt.
AP1 (Applicant): It started five years after the violations took place, even though the state agencies that cooperated with the CIA knew of these violations while Mr. Al-Nashry was held captive
AP1 (Applicant): and being tortured in Poland.
AP1 (Applicant): Publicly available sources indicate that the state agencies knew about violations from their beginning in 2002, since they actively took part in preparing a special building for the purpose of detention and torture.
AP1 (Applicant): Yet the state did nothing for five years.
AP1 (Applicant): Only under strong domestic and international pressure from bodies such as the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe did the prosecutor initiate an investigation in 2008.
AP1 (Applicant): To this date, no information regarding the findings of the prosecutor has been made publicly, officially available.
AP1 (Applicant): The passage of time has undermined the effectiveness of the investigation.
AP1 (Applicant): There is, of course, a threat that the charges which could be pursued for illegal detention and abuse of power by public officials could expire.
AP1 (Applicant): The lengthy duration of proceedings has also made it more difficult to effectively gather evidence, interview witnesses, who will remember less now than they did several years ago.
AP1 (Applicant): If the investigation is proceeding, it is not reflected in the non-classified files, which do not show any significant actions having been taken since the case was moved to Krakow.
AP1 (Applicant): A comparison of the government's 5th of September 2012 response to Mr. Al-Nashry's application
AP1 (Applicant): with its 16th September 2013 response to Mr. Abu Zubaydah's application
AP1 (Applicant): shows minimal progress in the investigation in the intervening year.
AP1 (Applicant): The total number of witnesses interviewed remained stagnant at 62.
AP1 (Applicant): From the government's own submissions, it is therefore apparent that nothing happened over that one year.
AP1 (Applicant): It appears to be convenient for the Polish state to keep the investigation going in a suspended state.
AP1 (Applicant): A dismissal of the investigation would be difficult in the face of public pressure to effectively hold perpetrators responsible.
AP1 (Applicant): And an indictment would be politically inconvenient.
AP1 (Applicant): However, this indefinite investigation is the worst possible scenario for the victim.
AP1 (Applicant): He has neither the right to a full review of the case files and then an appeal against the decision to dismiss the investigation, nor the possibility of having his rights vindicated in a criminal trial against the perpetrators.
AP1 (Applicant): Secondly, the investigation cannot be considered to be independent.
AP1 (Applicant): The prosecutors were changed in this investigation three times at junctions important for the victim, with no specific explanation from the prosecutor general or the government.
AP1 (Applicant): Each such change required the new prosecutor to become familiar with the files, thereby delaying the investigation further.
AP1 (Applicant): The first change actually occurred after prosecutor Jerzy Mierzewski acknowledged Mr. Al-Nashiri as a victim in the proceedings.
AP1 (Applicant): The prosecutor was, in fact, dismissed in my presence.
AP1 (Applicant): I came to meet with him to discuss the advancement of the case.
AP1 (Applicant): And immediately after I entered his room, he received a phone call from his superior and was told that he was relieved of the case and cannot speak with me.
AP1 (Applicant): The second set of prosecutors, led by Mr. Wladimir Martyl,
AP1 (Applicant): were relieved of the case immediately after they granted me and Mr. Bartłomiej Jankowski
AP1 (Applicant): access to the classified files for a very limited time.
AP1 (Applicant): I found out about this when I arrived to continue reading the classified files a few days later, as agreed with prosecutor Wladimir Martyl.
AP1 (Applicant): The fact that the prosecutors were changed following moments of cooperation with the victim's representative suggests a non-meritorious reason behind the changes.
AP1 (Applicant): This is further supported by a statement made on public radio by the Minister of Justice, Jaroslaw Gowin, on February 5, 2013, in which he states that charges brought against Zbigniew Szymiankowski were too hasty and that the charges against Szymiankowski proved to be insufficiently founded once the investigation was transferred to the prosecutor in Kraków.
AP1 (Applicant): The independence of the investigation requires that the Minister of Justice, independent from the prosecutor general, should not be commenting on decisions made by the prosecutor where the prosecutor himself has made no public statement concerning the charges.
AP1 (Applicant): The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights complained to the National Prosecutors' Council regarding the unusual transfers of the investigation.
AP1 (Applicant): The council indicated in its report, which the government submitted to this court, that it found no grounds to state that the transfer was politically dictated.
AP1 (Applicant): However, the council reached this conclusion based on the fact that none of the prosecutors involved in the investigation had filed a formal complaint to the council regarding the transfer.
AP1 (Applicant): This is not a sufficient explanation for extraordinary transfers in such a politically sensitive case.
AP1 (Applicant): To my best knowledge, the National Prosecutors' Council did not have access to any of the case files in this investigation.
AP1 (Applicant): They were therefore not in a position to judge whether the transfers were legitimate or not.
AP1 (Applicant): The council, however, indicates in its report that such a decision to transfer an investigation, I quote, can only be dictated by the interest of the proceedings and be based on findings of improper conduct or oversight of the proceedings.
AP1 (Applicant): Yet neither the observations of the government nor the letter of the National Prosecutors' Council makes any mention of improper conduct or oversight that could possibly justify three changes of the prosecutors.
AP1 (Applicant): Thirdly, I cannot properly represent the interests of Mr. al-Nashry in the domestic proceedings
AP1 (Applicant): because I have not had sufficient access to the files of the investigation.
AP1 (Applicant): I only had access to the classified files for a total of approximately three hours.
AP1 (Applicant): This was grossly insufficient time to review, understand, and memorize the relevant fragments of the very broad classified files.
AP1 (Applicant): I was also not allowed to take notes.
AP1 (Applicant): Fourthly, the investigation is not sufficiently transparent.
AP1 (Applicant): Indeed, since it began, no meaningful information on its terms of reference or the precise scope of the investigation or its progress has been publicly disclosed.
AP1 (Applicant): Unsurprisingly, the 13th November 2013 report of the United Nations Committee Against Torture urges Poland not only to urgently complete its investigation, but to inform the public and ensure transparency into the progress of its investigation process, as well as cooperate in full with the European Court of Human Rights.
AP1 (Applicant): The state of Poland has done neither.
AP1 (Applicant): Moreover, the secrecy of the investigation has severely hampered vindication of the applicant's rights.
AP1 (Applicant): The confidentiality which protects every investigation in Poland under Article 241 of the criminal code referred to by the prosecutor today is provided to ensure the effectiveness of the investigation.
AP1 (Applicant): It does not prevent the prosecutor from informing the public of important information concerning the investigation.
AP1 (Applicant): However, almost all relevant materials in this case were classified as secret or top secret.
AP1 (Applicant): The government, in its letter dated November 12, 2013, justifies this classification by invoking the interests of the investigation.
AP1 (Applicant): But investigative secrecy is not a legal basis under Polish law for classifying documents as secret or top secret.
AP1 (Applicant): This objective is served by Article 241 of the criminal code, which prohibits the public disclosure of materials from the files of an investigation.
AP1 (Applicant): The classification of documents in this investigation actually serves to protect the illegitimate interests of the agencies of the Polish state, which played a role in the illegal cooperation with the CIA and in violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
AP1 (Applicant): That is the purpose of the classification.
AP1 (Applicant): As a result of this over-classification, I am handicapped in presenting important information to this court, particularly since Polish law provides no mechanism for my seeking judicial review of the grounds for classification.
AP1 (Applicant): With respect to the issue of effective remedies, Mr. Al-Nashiri should have had access
AP1 (Applicant): to all effective and practical remedies capable of leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible.
AP1 (Applicant): Civil remedies alone are insufficient under this court's jurisprudence.
AP1 (Applicant): In relation to his rights under Article 2 and Article 1 of Protocol Number 6, the applicant was entitled under Polish law to judicial review of his transfer outside of Poland, which would have been barred in the face of substantial risk of the death penalty.
AP1 (Applicant): Following his transfer, the Polish government has been under a continuing obligation to use all available means, including diplomatic interventions, to preclude the death penalty in his case.
AP1 (Applicant): Moreover, had the Polish government conducted an effective investigation, the applicant could have used information derived from it to mitigate against the death penalty in his military commission trial.
AP1 (Applicant): By failing to provide any of these remedies, the Polish government has violated Mr. Al-Nashiri's
AP1 (Applicant): rights under Article 13 of the convention.
AP1 (Applicant): As indicated in our written observations, the government has also violated Article 38 of the convention by failing to furnish all necessary facilities to the court.
AP1 (Applicant): Despite the court's guarantee of confidentiality of information conveyed by the state to the court, the government did not supply any meaningful information in response to the court's questions.
AP1 (Applicant): Moreover, the government has provided no reasonable and solid grounds, as required under Janowicz and others, to justify the treatment of most of the relevant documents in the investigation as a secret.
AP1 (Applicant): Indeed, it did not even indicate which specific regulation of the Act on Protection of Classified Information was the legal basis for secrecy of the files of the investigation, or which agency issued the decision to classify the documents, or why entire volumes of the documents remain classified in their entirety instead of being released in the form of redacted versions of documents to the court.
AP1 (Applicant): This is in contrast to the approach of the Polish government in Janowicz, in which it argued that the Russian government had not produced a reasoned decision on the classification of relevant documents.
AP1 (Applicant): In any event, Janowicz makes clear that a mere reference to the structural deficiency of the domestic law, which rendered impossible communication of sensitive documents to international bodies, is an insufficient explanation to justify the withholding of information requested by the court.
AP1 (Applicant): Invoking limitations under Polish law regarding the classification of documents cannot justify a failure to cooperate with the court.
AP1 (Applicant): The government also failed to comply in a timely manner with the court's two procedural orders directing the production of an extract from the investigation files.
AP1 (Applicant): As such, the government has failed to abide by the standards reiterated in Janowicz, and the court is entitled to draw adverse inferences from such conduct.
AP1 (Applicant): Madam President, the Polish state failed to cooperate with the Marti inquiry.
AP1 (Applicant): It failed to cooperate with the Fava inquiry.
AP1 (Applicant): Now it has failed to cooperate with the European Court of Human Rights.
AP1 (Applicant): The only organization that the Polish state did cooperate with in this matter was the CIA.
AP1 (Applicant): Madam President, members of the court, I urge the court to hold Poland accountable for its joint operation with the CIA in the violation of Mr. Al-Nasri's
AP1 (Applicant): rights and freedoms.
Ineta Ziemele (JudgeP): Thank you, Mr. Pietrzak.
Ineta Ziemele (JudgeP): I call Mr. Hughes.
AP2 (Applicant): Thank you Madam President, members of the Court.
AP2 (Applicant): This case concerns abduction, secret detention, torture and the practice of extraordinary rendition.
AP2 (Applicant): Described by this Court as the extrajudicial transfer of persons from one jurisdiction or state to another for the purpose of detention and interrogation outside the normal legal system, where there was a real risk of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
AP2 (Applicant): On 5 December 2002, Abu Zubaydah, a victim of this practice, was transferred to Poland from CIA Blackside in Thailand as part of the CIA High Value Detainee Program.
AP2 (Applicant): He spent over nine months in incommunicado detention in a secret prison in Poland before being moved again to another secret prison outside of Poland.
AP2 (Applicant): Abu Zubaydah is now imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay.
AP2 (Applicant): Throughout his decade-long detention he has never been charged with a crime and there has never been any judicial review of his detention.
AP2 (Applicant): As a result of his ill-treatment he now suffers from serious and debilitating physical and mental conditions.
AP2 (Applicant): He is prevented from communicating with the outside world, including this Court, and his US counsel are precluded from disclosing to this Court any information he conveys to them.
AP2 (Applicant): This case presents extraordinary challenges for the victim.
AP2 (Applicant): It involves the commission of crimes on Polish territory by state agents acting in secret and making determined efforts to cover up and conceal evidence relating to the operation of a CIA detention centre on Polish territory.
AP2 (Applicant): Poland's failure to carry out an effective investigation and its consistently secretive approach to this case heightened those challenges.
AP2 (Applicant): Yet there is overwhelming evidence that Poland hosted a CIA secret prison in north-eastern Poland, that it assisted in and supported the running of that secret prison, and that it facilitated the transfer of Abu Zubaydah into and out of Poland to face the risk of further torture and inhuman treatment.
AP2 (Applicant): Despite this evidence, Poland refuses to publicly acknowledge its role in rendition, detention and torture.
AP2 (Applicant): This Court has on many occasions identified the object and purpose of the Convention as the protection of individual human rights and the maintenance and promotion of the ideals and values of a democratic society.
AP2 (Applicant): In order to be effective, the Convention must protect individuals from violations of their human rights, especially where those rights are violated by state agents operating under a policy of deliberate secrecy and concealment, and where the state relies on a completely ineffective domestic investigation in order to avoid proper scrutiny of its acts and omissions.
AP2 (Applicant): There is no doubt that the practice of extraordinary rendition was carried out within the territory of the Council of Europe and with the complicity of Member States.
AP2 (Applicant): It is beyond dispute that those States have failed to ensure protection for the victims of this practice.
AP2 (Applicant): I will set out the evidence which demonstrates that Poland hosted the CIA secret prison and Abu Zubaydah was detained incommunicado there from 5 December 2002 until 22 September 2003.
AP2 (Applicant): I will then demonstrate why Poland is responsible for specific violations of the Convention.
AP2 (Applicant): Mr Jankowski will show that the pretrial criminal investigation initiated by the Government over five years ago is ineffective, that no effective remedy was available to the applicant, and that Poland, throughout these proceedings before this Court, has failed to comply with its duty under the Convention to furnish all necessary facilities for the Court's examination of this case.
AP2 (Applicant): The CIA secret prison in Poland was deliberately established in order to allow incommunicado detention of prisoners take place outside any legal, political or public scrutiny.
AP2 (Applicant): Dr Marti, in his Council of Europe 2007 report, highlights the existence of bilateral agreements between the Polish Government and the CIA allowing this secret prison to operate.
AP2 (Applicant): Polish politician and Member of the European Parliament Józef Pinior, in his affidavit, gives evidence of an agreement drawn up for the purpose of regulating the existence of this prison and of documents that illustrate the provision of practical logistical support and servicing of the prison site by Polish authorities.
AP2 (Applicant): NGOs have identified Poland as having hosted a secret prison.
AP2 (Applicant): Authoritative press reports citing numerous Government officials and private contractors have also referred to the existence of an agreement allowing CIA planes to land at Ziminy Airport and detention of prisoners suspected of terrorism at the secret prison.
AP2 (Applicant): The head of the Polish intelligence agency in the relevant period has confirmed the landing of CIA flights in Poland.
AP2 (Applicant): Even the President at the time, Kwaśniewski, has publicly acknowledged that Poland hosted a CIA-run secret prison.
AP2 (Applicant): It is now proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Abu Zubaydah was transferred into Poland.
AP2 (Applicant): It is also now clear beyond any credible dispute that Abu Zubaydah was imprisoned at a CIA secret prison in Poland.
AP2 (Applicant): Senator Marti, in his 2007 report, states that CIA sources have confirmed to him that Abu Zubaydah was held at this secret prison and was questioned while there through the use of enhanced interrogation techniques.
AP2 (Applicant): His presence on Polish territory is also demonstrated through the evidence already set out in detail in our written pleadings.
AP2 (Applicant): As Expert 3 confirmed yesterday in his evidence to this Court, the declassified US Government reports, the CIA Office of Inspector General report and the Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility report demonstrate that Abu Zubaydah was transferred out of Thailand on 4 December and CIA operational cables show that the black site was shut down on that date.
AP2 (Applicant): Further, we have put before this Court sworn testimony from the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, in the case of Richmond v. Sport Flights, that contracts and invoices
AP2 (Applicant): also all point to the one consistent narrative and one only, that the flight from Thailand to Poland was performed by an aircraft N63MU, specifically contracted by the US for the purpose of performing rendition.
AP2 (Applicant): A letter from the Polish Border Guard to the Helsinki Foundation of Human Rights confirms that plane number N63MU landed in Jiminy on 5 December 2002 with eight passengers and four crew and departed on the same day with no passengers.
AP2 (Applicant): This account of the plane's arrival is verified by a handwritten log of landings and takeoffs at Jiminy Airport.
AP2 (Applicant): We heard yesterday how multiple efforts were made to disguise the true route of this plane.
AP2 (Applicant): Information disclosed to Senator Marti in his 2007 report by Eurocontrol showed that false flight plans were filed for N63MU, omitting Jiminy from the record of the plane's movements.