Finland and EU want to know more about suspected CIA prisoner flights

Suspected CIA "flying prisons" have landed in Finland

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The controversy over alleged European stopovers by planes chartered by the United States Central Intelligence Agency continues. Suspicions have been raised that such planes may have stopped in Finland as well.
      The Swedish-language newspaper Borgåbladet, appearing in the southern coastal town of Porvoo, wrote on Wednesday that a plane believed to have been leased by the CIA landed at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport in the spring of 2003.
      Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja (SDP) said in Parliament on Wednesday that he will send an inquiry over the matter to the US Embassy.
      "It is not acceptable, if the transport has not occurred according to international treaties. The matter is a serious one. Nobody can take people through Finland as prisoners without respect for international law", Tuomioja said.
      The European Union also sent a note to the United States after Monday’s meeting of EU foreign ministers.
     
One Hercules transport plane of the type suspected of having been used for the transport of prisoners has landed several times at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport. Many aviation enthusiasts took photographs of the plane on May 16th, 2003. Irmeli Paavola, head of information at the Civil Aviation Administration (CAA), says that the plane came from Frankfurt, spent about half an hour on the ground in Helsinki, and proceeded to Stockholm.
      Paavola says that the same plane has been in Finland a number of times.
      The Hercules Lockheed L-100-30, with the serial number N8213G, is flown by Prescott Support, which is claimed to be a cover for the CIA.
      The massive plane has space for cargo and about 100 passengers. According to information supplied to CAA, it was carrying cargo in May 2003.
      "We have no legal means to find out what a plane has in it. We rely on what airlines tell us", Paavola says. She adds that there is no reason to suspect that the plane in question was used by the CIA, and believes that it was an ordinary cargo flight.
     
Tuomioja says that Finnish officials are looking into where the plane was coming from and who was on it.
      However, Irmeli Paavola says that the CAA does not have the means to investigate the veracity of claims of a CIA connection. She says that the matter is for the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Staff.
      Both the Ministry of Defence and the Defence staff said on Wednesday that they do not plan to investigate the claims of CIA involvement.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  No evidence of CIA prisoner transport flights through Finland (16.11.2005)

Helsingin Sanomat