Europe Urged to Restrain Foreign Spies

BERLIN, March 1 -- Europe has become "a happy hunting ground" for foreign intelligence agents looking to kidnap terrorist suspects, the leader of the continent's top human rights group said Wednesday, urging European governments to crack down on operatives working for the CIA and other spy services.

Terry Davis, chairman of the Council of Europe, also criticized several European countries for not being more forthcoming about whether they have helped the CIA carry out extralegal counterterrorism operations on their soil. These include the secret detention and abduction of suspected members of al-Qaeda.

"I strongly support cooperation between Europe and the United States of America on all issues and especially the fight against terrorism," Davis said at a news conference at the council's headquarters in Strasbourg, France.

"But I also insist that European governments should have sufficient confidence to participate in such cooperation as equal partners."

The council, a group of 46 governments, issued its report after a three-month investigation in which it had only limited powers to force countries to provide information.

The report contends that the CIA has unfettered ability to mount covert counterterrorism operations in Europe with little regard to European legal and human rights standards. But the council said it was unable to collect any fresh evidence or obtain independent confirmation of several alleged CIA plots to apprehend or detain suspects on the continent.

The probe was prompted in part by a Washington Post report in November that the CIA has operated secret prisons housing high-level al-Qaeda leaders in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The Post has not published the names of the East European countries involved in the covert program, at the request of senior U.S. officials. They argued that the disclosure might disrupt counterterrorism efforts in those countries and elsewhere and could make them targets of retaliation.

The council said Wednesday that its investigation was also launched in response to other reports detailing how the CIA operated a fleet of civilian aircraft to secretly transport terrorism suspects across Europe and around the world.

In its report, the council singled out Poland, Italy, Macedonia and Bosnia as providing inadequate responses to queries about whether they were aware of human rights abuses committed by the CIA or domestic intelligence agencies on their soil since 2002.

"Regrettably," Davis said, "they have missed the opportunity to provide complete and adequate replies and dispel all doubts about their alleged misconduct."

Italian prosecutors have accused the CIA of kidnapping an Islamic cleric in northern Italy in 2003. Separately, German officials have said they do not doubt a German man's account that he was abducted in Macedonia the following year. It remains unclear what role -- if any -- local intelligence agencies played in those alleged operations.