This article is from page 69 of the 2006-02-28 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 69 JPG
THERE is “no evidence” to support claims made in files handed to the gardaí and the DPP that prisoners bound for torture are being transported through Shannon airport, Minister Dermot Ahern has said.
But it has also emerged that under Irish law, Gardaí cannot search any foreign planes that have been given permission to land on Irish soil because the planes have immunity.
Sinn Fein justice spokesperson, Aengus Ó Snodaigh has handed what is described as a “book of evidence’ to gardaí concerning the alleged use of Shannon for rendition flights.
Two previous files which had been passed on to DPP showed that there “is a lack of sufficient evidence. The complaints related to a regurgitation of media reports,” the Minister told the Dail.
But according to gardaí, the Government would have to request the US to waive the immunity of flights landing at Shannon to allow gardaí search the flights. The US have not had any such request.
The only other way for Gardaí to get on board the planes, a spokesman said, would be with a search warrant issued on suspicion of a crime being committed.
Meanwhile an attempt to get an emergency debate in the Seanad on a combined Opposition motion to establish a select committee to investigate the rendition claims has failed by 28 votes to 18.
The motion, in the names of 25 members of the house, called for the establishment of a committee to consider the mechanisms whereby the State or its agencies could investigate, on foot of allegations or otherwise, whether persons were being transported, via aircraft landing at Irish airports, to locations where they risked torture or inhuman or degrading treatement and the extent to which such mechanisms had been invoked in the last four years.
And Fianna Fáil MEP, Eoin Ryan, who sits on the EU committee due to question European politicians on rendition flights said it is unlikely that Irish politicians will be quizzed.
It had been thought that the Ministers for Justice, Foreign Affairs, Defence and Transport would face questions fromt he committee, but MEP Ryan said that similar invitations would then have to be extended to most of their European counterparts and this would not be feasible.