Amicus Curiae Brief — United States, Petitioner v. Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, aka Abu Zubaydah, et al.

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No. 20-827

IN THE

Supreme Court of the United States

_______________________

UNITED STATES,

Petitioner,

ZAYN AL-ABIDIN MUHAMMAD HUSAYN,

AKA ABU ZUBAYDAH, ET AL.,

Respondents.

_______________________

On Writ of Certiorari to the

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

_______________________

BRIEF OF THE BUREAU OF INVESTIGATIVE

JOURNALISM AND THE RENDITION

PROJECT AS AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF

RESPONDENTS

_______________________

DANIEL M. GREENFIELD

Counsel of Record

RODERICK & SOLANGE

MACARTHUR JUSTICE CENTER

NORTHWESTERN PRITZKER

SCHOOL OF LAW

375 East Chicago Ave.

Chicago, IL 60611

(312) 503-8538

daniel-greenfield@law.northwestern.edu

Counsel for Amici Curiae

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ....................................... ii

INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE ................................1

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF

ARGUMENT ...............................................................4

Argument ..............................................................8

Historical Summary .........................................8

Public documents pertaining to Abu

Zubaydah’s transfer into Poland already

existed in 2013. ...............................................11

Summary of evidence from these

documents .......................................................14

D. Analysis of flight operations in the context

of the rendition, detention and

interrogation program ....................................19

i. The Aero Contractors group .....................22

ii. The DynCorp-CSC group ..........................29

The SSCI Executive Summary and Poland:

“Detention Site Blue.” ....................................36

i. The SSCI Executive Summary and its

color-coded pseudonyms ............................36

ii. Data pertaining to Detention Site Blue

corroborates data relating to Poland ........38

II. Conclusion ...........................................................43

(i)

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Page(s)

Other Authorities

Adam Goldman & Julie Tate, Decoding the

secret black sites on the Senate’s report

on the CIA interrogation program, WASH.

POST, Dec. 9, 2014 .......................................... 37, 38

Adam Goldman, The hidden history of the

CIA’s prison in Poland, WASH. POST.,

Jan. 23, 2014 .......................................................... 8

Briefs and Record on Appeal, Richmor

Aviation, Inc. v. Sportsflight Air, Inc.,

No. 509735 (N.Y. App. Div.) .................... 13, 16, 17

C. Black, Foreign ‘liaison partners’ and the

CIA’s economy of detention, in

EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION: ADDRESSING

THE CHALLENGES OF ACCOUNTABILITY,

(Elspeth Guild, Didier Bigo & Mark

Gibney, eds., Routledge 2018) ......................... 3, 19

CIA OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL,

SPECIAL REVIEW, COUNTERTERRORISM

DETENTION AND INTERROGATION

ACTIVITIES (SEPTEMBER 2001–OCTOBER

2003) (2003-7123-IG), May 7, 2004 ............... 11, 15

THE CONSTITUTION PROJECT, THE REPORT OF

THE CONSTITUTION PROJECT’S TASK

FORCE ON DETAINEE TREATMENT (2013) ................ 9

iii

Crofton Black, A List Of The 28 Detainees

Held By CIA’s Detention Program In

2006—Its “Final” Year” TBIJ (Jan. 15,

2015) ....................................................................... 2

Crofton Black, Exclusive: US Senate

Intelligence Committee Corrects CIA

Torture Report After Bureau Probe, TBIJ

(Feb. 13, 2015) ........................................................ 2

Crofton Black, Legal Case Demands Details

About How CIA Used Windowless

Warehouse In Lithuania As Secret

Prison, TBIJ (Sept. 2, 2015) .................................. 2

Crofton Black, Revealed: Only 29 Detainees

From Secret CIA Torture Program

Remain In Guantánamo Bay, TBIJ,

(Jan. 15, 2015) ........................................................ 2

Crofton Black & Sam Raphael, Revealed:

The Boom And Bust Of The CIA’s Secret

Torture Sites, TBIJ (Oct. 14, 2015) ....................... 3

Crofton Black, “Site Violet”: How Lithuania

Helped Run A Secret CIA Prison, TBIJ

(Oct. 10, 2016) ........................................................ 3

Dana Priest, CIA Holds Terror Suspects in

Secret Prisons, WASH. POST., Nov. 2,

2005 ........................................................................ 6

Decl., El-Masri v. Tenet, No. 1:05-cv-1417

(E.D. Va. filed Apr. 6, 2006)................................... 5

Detention Site Blues, THE ECONOMIST, Dec.

11, 2014 ................................................................ 38

DOJ OFFICE OF PROFESSIONAL

RESPONSIBILITY, REPORT: INVESTIGATION

INTO THE OFFICE OF LEGAL COUNSEL’S

MEMORANDA CONCERNING ISSUES

RELATING TO THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

AGENCY’S USE OF ‘ENHANCED

INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES’ ON

SUSPECTED TERRORISTS, July 29, 2009.......... 12, 15

Greg Miller & Adam Goldman, Rise and fall

of CIA’s overseas prisons traced in

Senate report on interrogations, WASH.

POST, Dec. 11, 2014 .............................................. 37

Ian Cobain and James Ball, New light shed

on US government’s extraordinary

rendition programme: Online project

uncovers details of way in which CIA

carried out kidnaps and secret detentions

following September 11 attacks, THE

GUARDIAN, May 22, 2013 ....................................... 1

Italy warrants for 22 purported CIA

operatives, CNN International, Dec. 23,

2005 ........................................................................ 5

News Release, Human Rights Watch,

Human Rights Watch Statement on U.S.

Secret Detention Facilities in Europe

(Nov. 6, 2005) ..................................................... 6, 8

Peter Finn & Julie Tate, N.Y. billing

dispute reveals details of secret CIA

rendition flights, WASH. POST, Aug. 31,

2011 ...................................................................... 10

“President Discusses Creation of Military

Commissions to Try Suspected

Terrorists,” Sept. 6, 2006 ................................. 4, 43

THE REPORT (Vice Studios 2019)............................... 36

Ruth Blakeley & Sam Raphael, Human

Rights Fact-Finding and the CIA’s

Rendition, Detention and Interrogation

Programme: A Response to Cordell, 21(2)

INT’L AREA STUD. REV. 169 (2018).......................... 3

Sam Raphael, Crofton Black, Ruth Blakeley

& Steve Kostas, Tracking rendition

aircraft as a way to understand CIA

secret detention and torture in Europe,

20(1) INT’L J. HUM. RTS. 78 (2016) ......................... 3

Sam Raphael, Crofton Black & Ruth

Blakely, CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED

(The Rendition Project, 2019) ...................... passim

Scott Shane, Stephen Grey & Margot

Williams, C.I.A. Expanding Terror Battle

Under Guise of Charter Flights, N.Y.

TIMES, May 31, 2005 .............................................. 5

SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON

INTELLIGENCE, COMMITTEE STUDY OF THE

CIA’S DETENTION AND INTERROGATION

PROGRAM, EXECUTIVE SUMMARY,

approved December 13, 2012, updated

for release April 3, 2014, declassification

revisions December 3, 2014 ......................... passim

SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON

INTELLIGENCE, COMMITTEE STUDY OF THE

CIA’S DETENTION AND INTERROGATION

PROGRAM, Foreword, approved December

13, 2012, updated for release April 3,

2014, declassification revisions

December 3, 2014 ................................................. 37

Stephen Grey & Andrew Buncombe, How

Britain helps the CIA run secret torture

flights, THE INDEPENDENT, Feb. 10, 2005 ............. 5

Stephen Grey & Renwick McLean, Spain

Looks into C.I.A.’s Handling of

Detainees, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 14, 2005 .................... 5

Tom Hundley, Remote Polish airstrip holds

clues to secret CIA Flights, CHI. TRIB.,

Feb. 6, 2007 ............................................................ 8

International Authorities

Application, al Nashiri v. Poland, No.

28761/11 (Eur. Ct. H.R.) ...................................... 10

Application, Husayn (Abu Zubaydah) v.

Poland, No. 7511/13 (Eur. Ct. H.R.) ........ 10, 11, 14

European Parliament, Draft Report on

Alleged Transportation and Illegal

Detention of Prisoners in European

Countries by the CIA: Follow-Up of the

European Parliament TDIP Committee

Report, 2012/2033(INI), May 3, 2012 .................... 9

vii

European Parliament, Resolution on the

Alleged Use of European Countries by

the CIA for the Transportation and

Illegal Detention of Prisoners,

P6_TA(2007)0032, Feb. 14, 2007 ........................... 9

PACE, Committee on Legal Affairs and

Human Rights, Alleged Secret

Detentions and Unlawful Inter-State

Transfers of Detainees Involving Council

of Europe Member States, Doc. 10957,

June 12, 2006 ......................................................... 9

PACE, Committee on Legal Affairs and

Human Rights, Secret Detentions and

Illegal Transfers of Detainees Involving

Council of Europe Member States:

Second Report, June 11, 2007 ............................... 9

INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE1

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (“TBIJ”)

is a public interest non-profit media organization

based in London.2 It focuses on in-depth, rigorous investigations. The Rendition Project is a collaborative

academic research initiative run by Professor Ruth

Blakeley at the University of Sheffield and Doctor

Sam Raphael at the University of Westminster, which

collates, publishes and analyses data and documents

relating to the CIA’s Rendition, Detention and Interrogation (“RDI”) program.3

In 2011, Doctor Crofton Black, then of the NGO

Reprieve, began a collaboration with Doctor Raphael

and Professor Blakeley to collate and analyze all

available public source information on the CIA’s RDI

program. The resulting database and website were

first published in May 2013.4 In 2014, Doctor Black

began working with TBIJ. Following the publication

of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s Executive Summary of their report into

1 No counsel for any party authored this brief in whole or in part,

and no one other than amici curiae or their counsel contributed

money to fund the preparation or submission of this brief. Pursuant to this Court’s Rule 37.3. all parties have separately consented to the filing of this brief.

2 https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/.

3 https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/index.html.

4 Ian Cobain and James Ball, New light shed on US government’s

extraordinary rendition programme: Online project uncovers details of way in which CIA carried out kidnaps and secret detentions following September 11 attacks, THE GUARDIAN, May 22,

2013, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/22/us-extraordinary-rendition-programme.

(1)

the secret detention program in December 2014,5 Doctor Black, Doctor Raphael and Professor Blakeley continued to collaborate, developing their analysis of the

public record and correlating it with the declassified

Executive Summary. Their findings were ultimately

published in a joint study by The Rendition Project

and TBIJ in July 2019.6

SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, COMMITTEE

STUDY OF THE CIA’S DETENTION AND INTERROGATION PROGRAM,

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY, approved December 13, 2012, updated for

release April 3, 2014, declassification revisions December 3, 2014

(hereinafter “SSCI Executive Summary”), https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/141209-SSCI-TortureReport-Executive-Summary-Redacted.pdf.

6 Sam Raphael, Crofton Black & Ruth Blakely, CIA TORTURE

UNREDACTED (The Rendition Project, 2019) (hereinafter “CIA

TORTURE

UNREDACTED”),

https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/190710-TRP-TBIJ-CIA-TortureUnredacted-Full.pdf. This 400-page study was preceded by a

number of shorter articles, freely available on The Bureau of Investigative Journalism website. These include: Crofton Black,

Revealed: Only 29 Detainees From Secret CIA Torture Program

Remain In Guantánamo Bay, TBIJ, (Jan. 15, 2015),

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2015-01-15/revealed-only-29-detainees-from-secret-cia-torture-program-remain-in-guant%C3%A1namo-bay; Crofton Black, A List Of The

28 Detainees Held By CIA’s Detention Program In 2006—Its “Final” Year” TBIJ (Jan. 15, 2015), https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2015-01-15/a-list-of-the-28-detainees-held-bycias-detention-program-in-2006-its-final-year; Crofton Black,

Exclusive: US Senate Intelligence Committee Corrects CIA Torture Report After Bureau Probe, TBIJ (Feb. 13, 2015),

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2015-02-13/exclusive-us-senate-intelligence-committee-corrects-cia-torture-report-after-bureau-probe; Crofton Black, Legal Case Demands Details About How CIA Used Windowless Warehouse In Lithuania

As Secret Prison, TBIJ (Sept. 2, 2015), https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2015-09-02/legal-case-demands-details5

Aside from the database, website and report, Doctor Raphael, Professor Blakeley and Doctor Black

have published a number of shorter peer-reviewed academic studies of the RDI program.7 Doctor Black is

the joint author, with Edmund Clark, of Negative Publicity: Artefacts of Extraordinary Rendition (Aperture

2016), an award-winning book of documents and photographs relating to the RDI program.8 The material

about-how-cia-used-windowless-warehouse-in-lithuania-as-secret-prison; Crofton Black & Sam Raphael, Revealed: The Boom

And Bust Of The CIA’s Secret Torture Sites, TBIJ (Oct. 14, 2015),

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2015-10-14/revealed-the-boom-and-bust-of-the-cias-secret-torture-sites;

Crofton Black, “Site Violet”: How Lithuania Helped Run A Secret

CIA Prison, TBIJ (Oct. 10, 2016), https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2016-10-10/site-violet-how-lithuania-helpedrun-a-secret-cia-prison.

7 Sam Raphael, Crofton Black, Ruth Blakeley & Steve Kostas,

Tracking rendition aircraft as a way to understand CIA secret

detention and torture in Europe, 20(1) INT’L J. HUM. RTS. 78

(2016); Ruth Blakeley & Sam Raphael, Human Rights FactFinding and the CIA’s Rendition, Detention and Interrogation

Programme: A Response to Cordell, 21(2) INT’L AREA STUD. REV.

169 (2018); C. Black, Foreign ‘liaison partners’ and the CIA’s

economy of detention, in EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION:

ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGES OF ACCOUNTABILITY, (Elspeth

Guild, Didier Bigo & Mark Gibney, eds., Routledge 2018).

8 This work won the Rencontres d’Arles Photo-Text Book Award

in 2016 and the New York International Center of Photography’s

Infinity Award for Documentary and Photojournalism in 2017.

For its public reception, see discussions in The Financial Times

Magazine

(https://www.ft.com/content/90796270-ebc3-11e5888e-2eadd5fbc4a4), Vice (https://www.vice.com/en/article/jmayag/negative-publicity-edmund-clark-crofton-black), The British

Journal

Photography

(https://www.1854.photography/2016/08/long-read-edmund-clark-and-crofton-black-onthe-war-on-terror/), the website of the Magnum Foundation

(https://www.magnumfoundation.org/news/2018/3/27/a-conversation-with-redaction-edmund-clark-and-crofton-black-explore-

contained in it has formed the basis for numerous international art exhibitions and installations.

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF

ARGUMENT

On September 6, 2006, President George W. Bush

announced to the world what many already knew: “In

addition to the terrorists held at Guantanamo, a small

number of suspected terrorist leaders and operatives

captured during the war have been held and questioned outside the United States, in a separate program operated by the Central Intelligence Agency.”9

It was the first official public acknowledgement

that the CIA operated an RDI program, in which suspected terrorists captured overseas were held incommunicado in secret locations—“black sites”—outside

the U.S. The program was, at that moment, on pause:

all of its remaining prisoners had been moved into the

custody of the Department of Defense, or dispersed

abroad, in the days before the announcement was

made.

physical-traces-of-rendition),

The

Paris

Review

(https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/06/17/extraordinaryrendition/), Slate (https://slate.com/culture/2016/04/edmundclark-photographs-secret-detention-sites-in-his-book-withcrofton-black-negative-publicity-artefacts-of-extraordinary-rendition.html), 1000 Words Magazine (https://www.1000wordsmag.com/edmund-clark-and-crofton-black/) and The Intercept

(https://theintercept.com/2016/03/05/redaction-art-how-secretsare-made-visible/), among others.

9 “President Discusses Creation of Military Commissions to Try

Suspected Terrorists,” Sept. 6, 2006, https://georgewbushwhitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/09/200609063.html.

By the time of this announcement in September

2006, public awareness of the RDI program was already growing. Prisoners who had passed through the

black sites were beginning to talk to lawyers, NGOs

and the press. Journalists had identified and published a number of articles revealing aircraft associated with the program, correlating records of their

movements with known prisoner movements.10

Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen mistakenly held by

the CIA in Afghanistan, had sued CIA director George

Tenet.11 An Italian prosecutor had issued arrest warrants for 22 members of a CIA rendition team who had

carried out an operation in Milan in 2003.12 Police

were also investigating in Spain.13 And in November

2005, the Washington Post had run a piece by Dana

Priest, telling the world that

10 Scott Shane, Stephen Grey & Margot Williams, C.I.A. Expand-

ing Terror Battle Under Guise of Charter Flights, N.Y. TIMES,

May 31, 2005, https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/31/us/cia-expanding-terror-battle-under-guise-of-charter-flights.html; Stephen Grey & Andrew Buncombe, How Britain helps the CIA run

secret torture flights, THE INDEPENDENT, Feb. 10, 2005,

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/how-britain-helps-the-ciarun-secret-torture-flights-1529825.html.

11 Decl., El-Masri v. Tenet, No. 1:05-cv-1417 (E.D. Va. filed Apr.

2006),

https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/060406-El-Masri-v-Tenet-Declaration-of-ElMasri.pdf.

12 Italy warrants for 22 purported CIA operatives, CNN International,

Dec.

23,

2005,

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/12/23/italy.warrants2/.

13 Stephen Grey & Renwick McLean, Spain Looks into C.I.A.’s

Handling of Detainees, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 14, 2005,

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/14/world/europe/spain-looksinto-cias-handling-of-detainees.html.

[t]he CIA has been hiding and interrogating

some of its most important al Qaeda captives at

a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar

with the arrangement. The secret facility is

part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA

nearly four years ago that at various times has

included sites in eight countries, including

Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies

in Eastern Europe.14

Days after this article, Human Rights Watch explicitly identified two of these Eastern European democracies as Poland and Romania.15

Fifteen years later, the sea of secrecy surrounding

these initial glimpses of the landscape of the RDI program has receded. There is now such a mass of data

in the public domain about the RDI program that it is

a matter of public record not only who was held in it,

but—to a large extent—when each prisoner arrived in

it, when they left, where they were captured, where

they were released to, and which of the several sites

they were held in.16

In dozens of instances, this mass of data has made

it possible to reconstruct prisoners’ journeys into, be-

14 Dana Priest, CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons,

WASH. POST., Nov. 2, 2005, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2005/11/02/cia-holds-terror-suspects-in-secretprisons/767f0160-cde4-41f2-a691-ba989990039c/.

15 News Release, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch

Statement on U.S. Secret Detention Facilities in Europe (Nov. 6,

2005),

https://www.hrw.org/news/2005/11/06/human-rightswatch-statement-us-secret-detention-facilities-europe

16 CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED, supra, at 71-135.

tween and out of the black sites. These reconstructions are based on incontrovertible documentary evidence: declassified U.S. government documents, discovery from legal proceedings, contracts, invoices,

flight logs, and landing records.

One such reconstruction, long in the public domain, concerns Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn,

also known as Abu Zubaydah. As outlined in detail below, Abu Zubaydah, like seven other prisoners, was

held in Poland, in a site which opened in December

2002 and closed in September 2003. He was transported to Poland from a black site in Thailand, on a

Gulfstream jet registered N63MU, contracted by the

U.S. government to perform prisoner transfers (“renditions”). The public record shows the date on which

Abu Zubaydah arrived at the Polish black site. It

shows the aircraft’s contracting chain, which companies participated in the rendition, and how much each

company charged. It shows which other renditions the

same plane, and the same companies, were associated

with, when, and where. It shows the date on which

Abu Zubaydah was transferred out of Poland. It shows

in which other locations he was subsequently held

(Guantanamo Bay, Morocco, Lithuania and Afghanistan), and when; it shows where those held alongside

him in Poland were later held, and when. It shows

how many prisoners were held in the black sites at

any one time, and where. The entire evolution of the

black site program, in fact, is a matter of public record.

The government asserts that the “public

knowledge” that Poland hosted a black site where

prisoners, including Abu Zubaydah, were secretly

held is not knowledge at all, but merely the product of

“speculation, unofficial statements by former foreign

officials, and the judgment of a foreign tribunal that

deemed Poland’s refusal to confirm or deny alleged intelligence cooperation as warranting an adverse inference that Poland did host a CIA facility.”17 This description mischaracterises the evidence. Contrary to

this erroneous portrayal, the evidence showing that

Poland hosted a black site for the CIA is detailed, systematic and data-driven, and is confirmed by multiple

official documents emanating from various branches

of the U.S. government itself. It does not rely on speculation, unofficial statements by foreign officials or

adverse inferences from a refusal to confirm or deny.

Argument

A. Historical Summary

As noted above, the identification of Poland as a

black site host has been in the public domain since

2005.18 And since then, a long succession of studies,

declassified documents, lawsuits and investigations

have added more and more data confirming that this

identification is correct. No data has emerged to challenge this identification.

Between 2005 and 2014, a gradual clarification of

knowledge around the events concerning the Polish

black site occurred. This had many drivers, including

articles by investigative journalists,19 public reports

17 Pet. 2.

18 News Release, Human Rights Watch, supra note 15.

19 Tom Hundley, Remote Polish airstrip holds clues to secret CIA

Flights, CHI. TRIB., Feb. 6, 2007, https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2007-02-06-0702060187-story.html; Adam

Goldman, The hidden history of the CIA’s prison in Poland,

Jan.

23,

2014,

https://www.washingWASH. POST.,

tonpost.com/world/national-security/the-hidden-history-of-thecias-prison-in-poland/2014/01/23/b77f6ea2-7c6f-11e3-95c60a7aa80874bc_story.html.

by the Council of Europe,20 public reports by the European

Parliament,21

public

report

The Constitution Project,22 legal filings on behalf of

Abu Zubaydah and al-Nashiri at the European Court

20 The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)

is the parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe, a 47-nation

international organization dedicated to upholding human rights,

democracy and the rule of law. In 2005, PACE appointed a Swiss

former prosecutor, Dick Marty, to investigate reports in the media concerning the RDI program. For the two reports, see PACE,

Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Alleged Secret

Detentions and Unlawful Inter-State Transfers of Detainees Involving Council of Europe Member States, Doc. 10957, June 12,

2006, https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/

060612-PACE-Alleged-Secret-Detentions-Report.pdf;

PACE,

Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Secret Detentions and Illegal Transfers of Detainees Involving Council of Europe Member States: Second Report, June 11, 2007,

https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/070711PACE-Secret-Detentions-and-Illegal-Transfers-SecondReport.pdf.

21 European Parliament, Resolution on the Alleged Use of European Countries by the CIA for the Transportation and Illegal Detention of Prisoners, P6_TA(2007)0032, Feb. 14, 2007,

https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/070214European-Parliament-Resolution-on-Rendition.pdf; European

Parliament, Draft Report on Alleged Transportation and Illegal

Detention of Prisoners in European Countries by the CIA: Follow-Up of the European Parliament TDIP Committee Report,

2012/2033(INI), May 3, 2012, https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/120502-LIBE-Draft-Report-onTransportation-and-Illegal-Detention.pdf.

THE CONSTITUTION PROJECT, THE REPORT OF THE

CONSTITUTION PROJECT’S TASK FORCE ON DETAINEE TREATMENT

(2013),

https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/130416-The-Constitution-Project-DetaineeTreatment-Report.pdf.

of Human Rights (ECtHR)23 and the unearthing by

the NGO Reprieve of a large dossier of logistical records relating to the RDI program.24 Throughout this

period, the public record around who was held in Poland, when, where prisoners held there were moved to

and from, and how they were transferred, became

more detailed and accurate.

In December 2014, the declassified Executive

Summary of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report, COMMITTEE STUDY OF THE CIA’S

DETENTION AND INTERROGATION PROGRAM, conclusively confirmed the principal findings around Poland—referred to as “Detention Site Blue”—that had

been established by investigators between 2005 and

2014.25 It also added new information.

It is now definitively established that the Polish

site operated between December 2002 and September

2003, and that during this period it held a total of

eight prisoners. The public record indicates that these

prisoners were Abu Zubaydah, Abd al-Rahim alNashiri, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Yasir al-Jaza’iri, Walid bin Attash, Ammar

al-Baluchi and Samr al-Barq.26

23 Application, Husayn (Abu Zubaydah) v. Poland, No. 7511/13

(Eur. Ct. H.R.); Application, al Nashiri v. Poland, No. 28761/11

(Eur. Ct. H.R.).

24 Peter Finn & Julie Tate, N.Y. billing dispute reveals details of

secret CIA rendition flights, WASH. POST, Aug. 31, 2011,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nybilling-dispute-reveals-details-of-secret-cia-renditionflights/2011/08/30/gIQAbggXsJ_story.html.

25 SSCI Executive Summary, supra.

26 CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED, supra, at 110.

It was, at the time, the most important of the CIA’s

black sites, to where the few prisoners deemed most

significant were sent.27 And it was also one at which

unauthorized enhanced interrogation techniques

were practiced, leading to investigation by the CIA’s

Office of the Inspector General.28 In September 2003,

the site was closed, and its prisoners dispersed to

other prisons in Morocco, Romania and Guantánamo

Bay.29

B. Public documents pertaining to Abu

Zubaydah’s transfer into Poland already

existed in 2013.

Abu Zubaydah’s application to the ECtHR, made

on March 26, 2013, included a detailed account of the

principal evidence showing that he was transferred

into Poland on December 4-5, 2002.30 This evidence

includes:

● A report prepared by the CIA Office of Inspector General, that provides information about

the movement of Abu Zubaydah from one site

to another.31

27 SSCI Executive Summary, supra, at 57.

28 SSCI Executive Summary, supra at 69-70.

29 CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED, supra, at 114, 328-29; Application

at ¶¶104-116, Husayn (Abu Zubaydah) v. Poland, No. 7511/13

(Eur. Ct. H.R.).

30 Application at ¶¶50-71, Husayn (Abu Zubaydah) v. Poland,

No. 7511/13 (Eur. Ct. H.R.).

CIA OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL, SPECIAL REVIEW,

COUNTERTERRORISM DETENTION AND INTERROGATION ACTIVITIES

(SEPTEMBER 2001–OCTOBER 2003) (2003-7123-IG), May 7, 2004

(hereinafter “CIA OIG Report 2004”), https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/040507-CIA-OIG-SpecialReview-Detention-Interrogation-Activities-Redacted.pdf.

● A report prepared by the DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility, that provides information about the movement of Abu Zubaydah

from one site to another.32

● A 110-page “Vaughn Index”33 of CIA internal

communications (“cables”), emails, reports and

other documents, disclosed by the CIA to the

ACLU in response to FOIA request F-200401456, which provides information about the

closure of a CIA black site.34

● A 17-page list of CIA cables released in the

course of ACLU v. Department of Defense,

providing information about the closure of a

CIA black site.35

● Documents, including invoices and contracts,

disclosed by the parties in the course of the

Richmor v. Sportsflight civil lawsuit concerning

DOJ OFFICE OF PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY, REPORT:

INVESTIGATION INTO THE OFFICE OF LEGAL COUNSEL’S

MEMORANDA CONCERNING ISSUES RELATING TO THE CENTRAL

INTELLIGENCE AGENCY’S USE OF ‘ENHANCED INTERROGATION

TECHNIQUES’ ON SUSPECTED TERRORISTS, July 29, 2009 (hereinafter “DOJ OPR Report 2009”)https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/090729-DoJ-OPR-Investigation-intoDoJ-EIT-Memos.pdf.

33 A “Vaughn Index” is a type of disclosure made by an agency

withholding documents in response to a Freedom of Information

Act request. It identifies the withheld documents and puts on

record the reasons for nondisclosure.

https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/091120ACLU-v-DoD-Vaughn-Index-FOIA-Release.pdf.

35 CIA cable list produced by the U.S. Government, ACLU v. Dep’t

of Def., No. 04-cv-4151 (S.D.N.Y. May 18, 2009),

http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/legaldocuments/torturefoia_list_20090518.pdf.

breach of contract between two companies participating in the rendition program, showing

how the government organized a number of

rendition flights, what their routes were and

how much they cost.36

● Other invoicing and contractual material relating to the logistics of prisoner transfer movements within the RDI program, obtained and

disclosed by Reprieve in 2011, showing how the

government organized a number of rendition

flights, what their routes were and how much

they cost.37

● Flight plan messages disclosed by the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (EuroControl), showing how falsified flight

plans were filed by aircraft carrying out renditions, to disguise actual movements.38

● Flight plan messages disclosed by the Polish

Air Navigation Services Agency (PANSA) to the

Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in

36 See generally, briefing by the parties and record on appeal,

Richmor Aviation, Inc. v. Sportsflight Air, Inc., No. 509735, (N.Y.

App. Div.).

37 This material has been published on the Rendition Project

website and is referenced below where appropriate.

38 Euro Control Flight Plan Messages, https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/021204-Universal-WeatherAFTN-SITA-text-N63MU.pdf. EuroControl is an international

body supporting air traffic management in and around European

airspace. See https://www.eurocontrol.int/about-us.

200939 and 2010,40 showing the actual movements of several aircraft carrying out renditions.

● Landing records disclosed by the Polish Border

Guard to the Helsinki Foundation for Human

Rights in 2010, showing the actual movements

of several aircraft carrying out renditions.41

As Abu Zubaydah’s ECtHR application demonstrates

in detail, the 2004 CIA OIG Report and 2009 DOJ

OPR Report, taken alongside the two lists of cables

disclosed by the CIA to the ACLU, show that Abu

Zubaydah and another prisoner, Abd al-Rahim alNashiri, were moved from one detention site to another on December 4-5, 2002.42 This transfer signalled

the closure of the first site and the opening of the second. Other incontrovertible evidence, discussed below,

shows that those black sites were in Thailand and Poland, respectively.

C. Summary of evidence from these documents

To summarize the evidence referenced in the ECtHR application: on November 15, 2002, Abd alRahim al-Nashiri was brought to the site where Abu

https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/090916PANSA-Poland-FOI-Response-Sep-09.pdf.

40 https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/100602PANSA-Poland-FOI-Response-Jun-10.pdf.

41 https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/100723SG-Poland-FOI-Response-Jul-10.pdf.

42 Application at ¶¶50-71, Husayn (Abu Zubaydah) v. Poland,

No. 7511/13 (Eur. Ct. H.R.).

Zubaydah was then being held.43 The DOJ OPR Report states that subsequently, on a redacted date in

2002, “both al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah were moved

to another CIA black site.”44 The reference for this

statement is the 2004 CIA OIG Report, paragraph 76,

which states that “enhanced interrogation of AlNashiri continued through 4 December 2002, [2 lines

redacted].”

Significant additional material corroborates this

evidence that the two prisoners were moved on December 4, 2002. The “Vaughn Index” contains a cable

from Headquarters to Field, dated December 3, 2002,

with the subject line “Closing of facility and destruction of classified information.”45 The 17-page list of

CIA cables, meanwhile, shows that cables were sent

daily, sometimes multiple times per day, from Field to

Headquarters between April 13, 2002, and December

4, 2002.46 After December 4, 2002, no cables in that

set of documents were sent from Field to Headquarters.47

That the cables ceased because al-Nashiri and Abu

Zubaydah were moved on December 4, 2002, is further

corroborated by flight records and other aviation-related documents recording a prisoner transfer on this

date. These documents—from multiple independent

but mutually supporting sources—record the movements of N63MU, a jet leased by the U.S. government

to carry out rendition flights. This was no one-off:

43 CIA OIG Report 2004, supra, at 35-36 ¶76.

44 DOJ OPR Report 2009, supra, at 85 (citing CIA OIG Report

2004 at ¶76).

45 Vaughn Index, supra, at 15 (Doc. No. 8).

46 CIA cable list, supra, at 1-16.

47 Id. at 16.

N63MU carried out multiple rendition missions on behalf of the U.S. government between 2002 and 2006.

Again, the evidence underlying the proposition

that N63MU travelled from Thailand to Poland on December 4-5, 2002, in the context of the RDI program,

is laid out in detail in Abu Zubaydah’s ECtHR application. In summary:

● N63MU’s mission was contracted by DynCorp

Systems & Solutions, LLC, of Alexandria, Virginia, as part of a contract entitled Single Entity Aircraft Charter Agreement LT050602

(LT050602 Charter Agreement).48

● Documents disclosed in the course of the Richmor v. Sportsflight civil lawsuit in New York

State show that the LT050602 Charter Agreement between DynCorp and an aircraft broker,

Capital Aviation, was executed on June 17,

2002.49 It was initially intended to cover the

services of one particular aircraft, a Gulfstream

jet registered as N85VM and managed by an

aircraft operating company called Richmor Aviation, although on occasion other aircraft such

as N63MU could act as substitutes for N85VM

when it was unavailable.50

48 DynCorp Systems & Solutions LLC was a prime contractor for

rendition logistics. CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED, supra, at 45-48.

49 Single Entity Aircraft Charter Agreement No. LT050602, ROA

742-750, Richmor Aviation, No. 509735 (N.Y. App. Div.),

https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/020617Dyncorp-Capital-Contract-LT050602.pdf

50 Cf. id. at ROA 745 ¶6.

● As is made clear in trial transcripts and discovery exchanged in the course of the Richmor litigation, under the auspices of the charter agreement, numerous rendition missions were performed by N85VM and other aircraft organized

by DynCorp and latterly by Computer Sciences

Corporation on behalf of the CIA:51 “It was ultimately learned that the flights [under this contract] would be going to and from Guantánamo

Bay and would be used for assorted rendition

missions.”52

● For the mission to move al-Nashiri and Abu

Zubaydah, LT050602 “trip 24”, DynCorp paid

two brokers, Capital Aviation and AirMarketing, $339,808.83 for 52.3 flying hours.53 Capital

Aviation and AirMarketing shared brokering

services for this trip: they located the aircraft

and paid its operating company, FirstFlight

Management/Airborne Inc., for flying time and

fees. Airborne Inc. charged the brokers $4,900

per hour for the use of the plane,54 and the brokers in turn charged DynCorp $5,450.55

Computer Sciences Corporation, a government contractor,

bought DynCorp Systems & Solutions in 2004, and continued to

manage a part of the rendition program until 2006.

52 Br. for Def.-Aplt. at 2, Richmor Aviation, No. 509735, (N.Y.

App. Div. filed May 23, 2011).

53 Capital Aviation Receipt Trip 24, https://www.therenditionpro-

ject.org.uk/documents/RDI/030124-Capital-Aviation-ReceiptTrip-24.pdf.

54 AirMarketing Invoice 22731, https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/021210-AirMarketing-Invoice22731.pdf

55 Capital Aviation Receipt Trip 24, supra note 53.

● Two invoices, 22731 and 23109, from AirMarketing Services, sent after completion of

the mission and dated December 10, 2002, and

January 16, 2003, respectively, bill for the charter of N63MU between December 3 and 6, 2002

(flying hours, commission, services, expenses,

landing fees, catering and international fees).56

The route is cited as IAD (Washington Dulles) /

PANC (Anchorage) / RJBB (Osaka) / VTBD

(Bangkok) / OMDM (Minhad, UAE) / EPSY

(Szymany) / EPWA (Warsaw) / EGGW (London

Luton) / IAD (Washington Dulles). Invoice

23109 attests that this mission was a “Government trip.”57

● Invoice, LT-050602-1203, from Capital Aviation to DynCorp dated January 7, 2003, gives

the same itinerary for N63MU over the same

period of time.58

● Flight plan data disclosed to the Parliamentary

Assembly of the Council of Europe by EuroControl shows that in the course of its journey,

N63MU filed false flight plans.59 These false

flight plans gave the impression that N63MU

56 AirMarketing Invoice 22731, supra note 54; AirMarketing In-

voice

23109,

https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/030116-AirMarketing-Invoice-23109.pdf.

57 AirMarketing Invoice 23109, supra note 56.

58 Capital Aviation Invoice LT-050602-1203, https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/030107-Capital-AviationInvoice-1203.pdf.

59 Euro Control Flight Plan Messages, supra note 38.

was flying from Dubai to Vienna and from Vienna to London Luton, thus omitting Poland

from the record of the aircraft’s movements.60

● N63MU’s landing in Szymany, Poland is confirmed, however, by a letter from the Polish

Border Guard to the Helsinki Foundation of

Human Rights, Warsaw, dated July 23, 2010.61

According to this letter, N63MU arrived in Szymany on December 5, 2002, with eight passengers and four crew, and departed from Szymany on the same day with no passengers and

four crew.

D. Analysis of flight operations in the context of the rendition, detention and interrogation program

It is important to bear in mind that the black site

network was just that—a network. Its individual sites

did not operate in isolation from one another but were

interacting elements of a single system.62 The weight

of evidence demonstrating that Poland hosted a black

site is bolstered by correlations with movements into

and out of other sites. These movements—on aircraft

60 Id. Flight plans record a departure airport, “ADEP”, and a destination airport, “ADES”. The first falsified flight plan states that

on leaving the airport with code OMDB (Dubai, United Arab

Emirates) the aircraft was bound for “LOWW”, the airport code

for Vienna, Austria. Id. at. 1. The second falsified flight plan

states that N63MU left LOWW (Vienna, Austria) bound for

EGGW (London Luton). Id. at 2. The aircraft, however, never

went to Vienna, as the invoices show.

61 https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/100723SG-Landing-Records-N379P-N313P-N63MU.pdf.

62 See CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED, supra, at 55-58 for a brief out-

line; C. Black, Foreign “liaison partners” and the CIA’s economy

of detention, supra.

with documented links to other such movements

within the same program—show the breadth of the

RDI program.

The Rendition Project hosts a publicly accessible

dataset of thousands of flight records gathered by various investigators since the mid-2000s.63 What has

emerged clearly is that aircraft carrying out rendition

missions for the CIA fall into two groups. One group,

which we refer to as the Aero Contractors group, socalled after its North Carolina based operating company, comprised two jets, and was used more commonly in the earlier years of the program.64 The second group, which we refer to as the DynCorp-CSC

group, so-called after its two prime contractors, comprised multiple jets, and was used sparingly at the beginning of the program and more frequently towards

the end of it.65

All of the rendition missions which we have documented—which means 62 missions running from October 2001 to August 2006—were carried out by aircraft from one of these two groups.66 These 62 missions involved 121 renditions of individuals in total.67

In other words, we have located 121 instances where

known dates of an individual’s transfer were matched

https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/flights/flight-database.html.

64 CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED, supra, at 45-50.

65 CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED, supra, at 45-50.

66 See infra, I.D.i. and I.D.ii.

67 CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED, supra, at 291.

by a mission carried out by a plane from one of these

two groups.68

In the case of the DynCorp-CSC group, all of the

rendition missions we have linked to this group carry

a single invoice number, the aforementioned

LT050602.69 This invoice number serves to tie all of

those flights together into a single pattern of conduct,

notwithstanding the fact that there were several successive contracts with different identifying numbers

over the period.70

Following the practice of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s investigators, we analyze prisoner transfers as “circuits,” where a circuit

comprises a completed movement of an aircraft from

the U.S., through the locations where one or more

prisoners were moved from and to, along with any

other refuelling or rest stops that the aircraft was required to make, back to the U.S. As described in more

detail in our study CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED, the following missions have been identified as transferring

prisoners into or out of Poland, to and from other detention locations.

● Circuit 15, December 3-6, 2002, plane registered N63MU: prisoners transferred from Thailand to Poland;71

68 For a complete list, see CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED, Appendix

2, supra, at 291-380.

69 This number matches the initial DynCorp–Capital Aviationcontract. See Charter Agreement No. LT050602, supra note 49.

70 CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED, supra, at 46-8.

71 Id. at 311.

● Circuit 17, Feb 6-13, 2003, plane registered

N379P: prisoner transferred from Morocco to

Poland;72

● Circuit 19, March 1-9, 2003, plane registered

N379P: prisoner transferred from Afghanistan

to Poland;73

● Circuit 20, March 23-28, 2003, plane registered

N379P: prisoner transferred from Afghanistan

to Poland;74

● Circuit 23, June 3-7, 2003, plane registered

N379P: prisoners transferred from Afghanistan

to Poland and Poland to Morocco;75

● Circuit 27, July 27–Aug 1, 2003, plane registered N379P: prisoners transferred from Afghanistan to Poland;76 and

● Circuit 31, Sept 20-25, 2003, plane registered

N313P: prisoners transferred from Poland to

Romania, Morocco and Guantanamo Bay.77

To illustrate the body of evidence tying these three

aircraft to the RDI program, we will now offer a snapshot of the bigger picture.

The Aero Contractors group

Six of the circuits identified above involve the two

aircraft registered at the time as N379P and N313P.

72 Id. at 314.

73 Id. at 316.

74 Id. at 317.

75 Id. at 320-1.

76 Id. at 323-4.

77 Id. at 328-9.

We refer to these aircraft here as the “Aero Contractors” group. Overall, our research has documented the

following renditions by these two aircraft. 78

No.

Prisoner

Rendition

Date

Aircraft

Jamil

Qasim

Saeed Mohammed

Pakistan to

Jordan

10/23/01

N379P

Ahmed

Agiza

Sweden to

Egypt

12/18/01

N379P

Mhmd elZery

Sweden to

Egypt

12/18/01

N379P

Mhmd

Saad Iqbal

Madni

Indonesia

to Egypt

(via Diego

Garcia)

01/10/02

N379P

Ali al-Hajj

al-Sharqawi

Pakistan or

Afghanistan to Jordan

02/10/02

N379P

Mamdouh

Habib

Egypt to

Afghanistan (via

Uzbekistan)

04/12/02

N379P

Mhmd

Saad Iqbal

Madni

Egypt to

Afghanistan (via

04/12/02

N379P

78 The “RC” number is the “Rendition Circuit” number in CIA

TORTURE UNREDACTED, Appendix 2, supra. Full documentation

for each circuit is referenced there.

No.

Prisoner

Rendition

Date

Aircraft

Uzbekistan)

Abou

Elkassim

Britel

Pakistan to

Morocco

05/24/02

N379P

Mohamedou Ould

Slahi

Jordan to

Afghanistan

07/19/02

N379P

Binyam

Mohamed

Pakistan to

Morocco

07/21/02

N379P

Umar

Faruq

Indonesia

to Egypt

(via Diego

Garcia)

09/15/02

N379P

Ramzi bin

al-Shibh

Afghanistan to Morocco

09/17/02

N379P

Hassan bin

Attash

Afghanistan to Jordan

09/17/02

N379P

Umar

Faruq

Egypt to

Afghanistan

09/29/02

N379P

Abd alSalam alHilah

Egypt to

Afghanistan

09/29/02

N379P

Abd alRahim alNashiri

Afghanistan to

Thailand

11/15/02

N379P

No.

Prisoner

Rendition

Date

Aircraft

Bisher alRawi

The Gambia to Afghanistan

(via Egypt)

12/08/02

N379P

Jamil elBanna

The Gambia to Afghanistan

(via Egypt)

12/08/02

N379P

Pacha Wazir

Morocco to

Afghanistan

12/12/02

N379P

Ramzi bin

al-Shibh

Morocco

to Poland

02/07/03

N379P

Ibn Sheikh

al-Libi

Egypt to

Afghanistan

02/09/03

N379P

Khaled

Sheikh

Mohammed

Afghanistan to Poland

03/07/03

N379P

Abu Yasir

al-Jaza’iri

Afghanistan to Poland

03/25/03

N379P

Laid Saidi

Malawi/Djibouti to Afghanistan

05/15/03

N379P

Walid bin

Attash

Afghanistan to Poland

06/05/03

N379P

No.

Prisoner

Rendition

Date

Aircraft

Abd alRahim alNashiri

Poland to

Morocco

06/06/03

N379P

Ramzi bin

al-Shibh

Poland to

Morocco

06/06/03

N379P

Hiwa

Rashul

Iraq to Afghanistan

07/03/03

N379P

Saifullah

Paracha

Thailand to

Afghanistan

07/08/03

N379P

Asadallah

Afghanistan to

Egypt

07/23/03

N379P

Samr alBarq

Afghanistan to Poland

07/29/03

N379P

Sanad alKazimi

UAE to Afghanistan

08/14/03

N379P

Saleh Qaru

Jordan to

Afghanistan

09/09/03

N379P

Abu

Zubaydah

Poland to

Guantánamo Bay

09/22/03

N313P

Khaled

Sheikh

Mohammed

Poland to

Romania

09/22/03

N313P

Walid bin

Attash

Poland to

Romania

09/22/03

N313P

No.

Prisoner

Rendition

Date

Aircraft

Samr alBarq

Poland to

Romania

09/22/03

N313P

Abu Yasir

al-Jaza’iri

Poland to

Romania

09/22/03

N313P

Abd alRahim alNashiri

Morocco to

Guantánamo Bay

09/23/03

N313P

Abu Yasir

al-Jaza’iri

Romania to

Afghanistan (via

Jordan)

10/26/03

N379P

Mhmd

Bashmilah

Jordan to

Afghanistan

10/26/03

N379P

Samr alBarq

Romania to

Jordan

10/26/03

N379P

Hiwa

Rashul

Afghanistan to Iraq

10/29/03

N379P

Aso Hawleri

Afghanistan to Iraq

10/29/03

N379P

Ibn Sheikh

al-Libi

Afghanistan to

Guantánamo Bay

11/22/03

N313P

Mustafa alHawsawi

Afghanistan to

Guantánamo Bay

11/22/03

N313P

Ramzi bin

al-Shibh

Morocco to

Guantánamo Bay

12/03/03

N379P

No.

Prisoner

Rendition

Date

Aircraft

Mohammed

al-Asad

Djibouti to

Afghanistan

01/08/04

N313P

Ali al-Hajj

al-Sharqawi

Jordan to

Afghanistan

01/08/04

N313P

Hassan bin

Attash

Jordan to

Afghanistan

01/08/04

N313P

Binyam

Mohamed

Morocco to

Afghanistan

01/22/04

N313P

Saleh Di’iki

Morocco to

Afghanistan

01/22/04

N313P

Jamal Boudraa

Afghanistan to Algeria

01/22/04

N313P

Khaled alMaqtari

Iraq to Afghanistan

01/22/04

N379P

Hassan

Ghul

Iraq to Afghanistan

01/24/04

N313P

Khaled elMasri

Macedonia

to Afghanistan

01/24/04

N313P

Mohammed

Ibrahim

(possible)

Jordan to

Romania

01/24/04

N313P

Hassan

Ghul

Afghanistan to Romania

01/26/04

N313P

No.

Prisoner

Rendition

Date

Aircraft

Abdel Hakim Belhadj

Thailand to

Libya (via

Diego Garcia)

03/08/04

N313P

Fatima

Bouchar

Thailand to

Libya (via

Diego Garcia)

03/08/04

N313P

Gouled

Dourad

Djibouti to

Afghanistan

03/08/04

N379P

Yunus Rahmatullah

Iraq to Afghanistan

03/11/04

N313P

Abu Abdallah

Iraq to Afghanistan

03/12/04

N313P

ii.

The DynCorp-CSC group

One of the rendition missions identified above as

passing through Poland—the first one—was carried

out by the DynCorp-CSC group. Overall, our research

has documented the following renditions by aircraft

contracted to operate within this group.

No.

Prisoner

Rendition

Date

Aircraft

Zakariya

Georgia to

Afghanistan

04/30/02

N63MU

Jamal Boudraa

Georgia to

Afghanistan

04/30/02

N63MU

No.

Prisoner

Rendition

Date

Aircraft

al-Hawari

Georgia to

Afghanistan

04/30/02

N63MU

Pachar Wazir

UAE to Morocco

10/06/02

N63MU

Maher

Arar

US to Jordan (via Italy)

10/08/02

N829MG

Abd alRahim alNashiri

Dubai to

Afghanistan

11/09/02

N85VM

Abd alRahim alNashiri

Thailand

to Poland

(via Dubai)

12/04/02

N63MU

Abu

Zubaydah

Thailand

to Poland

(via Dubai)

12/04/02

N63MU

Abu Omar

Italy to

Egypt (via

Germany)

02/17/03

N85VM

Suleiman

Abdullah

Djibouti to

Afghanistan

03/28/03

N63MU

Zubair

Thailand to

Afghanistan (via

Sri Lanka)

06/19/03

N614RD

No.

Prisoner

Rendition

Date

Aircraft

Hambali

Thailand to

Afghanistan (via

Sri Lanka)

08/13/03

N85VM

Lillie

Thailand to

Afghanistan (via

Sri Lanka)

08/13/03

N85VM

Ali Saeed

Awadh

Djibouti to

Afghanistan

12/15/03

N85VM

Mohammed

Ibrahim

(possible)

Jordan to

Romania

01/26/04

N85VM

Abu

Zubaydah

Guantánamo Bay

to Romania

/ Morocco

04/12/04

N85VM

N368CE

42/4

Mustafa alHawsawi

Guantánamo Bay

to Romania

/ Morocco

04/12/04

N85VM

N368CE

42/4

Ramzi bin

al-Shibh

Guantánamo Bay

to Romania

/ Morocco

04/12/04

N85VM

N368CE

42/4

Ibn Sheikh

al-Libi

Guantánamo Bay

to Romania

/ Morocco

04/12/04

N85VM

N368CE

No.

Prisoner

Rendition

Date

Aircraft

42/4

Abd alRahim alNashiri

Guantánamo Bay

to Romania

04/12/04

N85VM

N368CE

Mustafa elMadaghi

Morocco to

Libya

05/03/04

N85VM

Khaled elMasri

Afghanistan to Albania

05/28/04

N982RK

Laid Saidi

Afghanistan to Tunisia and

back

06/09/04

N982RK

Ali Saeed

Awadh

Afghanistan to Djibouti

06/14/04

N85VM

Janat Gul

Afghanistan to Romania (via

Jordan)

07/31/04

N288KA

Majid alMaghrebi

Afghanistan to

Libya

08/22/04

N63MU

Mhmd alShoroeiya

Afghanistan to

Libya

08/22/04

N63MU

Saleh Di'iki

Afghanistan to

Libya

08/22/04

N63MU

Laid Saidi

Afghanistan to Algeria

08/26/04

N308AB

No.

Prisoner

Rendition

Date

Aircraft

Ramzi bin

al-Shibh

Morocco to

Romania

10/01/04

N227SV

Mohammed

Ibrahim

Romania to

Jordan

10/20/04

N789DK

Sharif alMasri

Afghanistan to

Egypt

12/16/04

N227SV

Ibn Sheikh

al-Libi

Morocco to

Jordan

02/17/05

N724CL

Abu

Zubaydah

Morocco to

Lithuania

02/18/05

N787W

Mustafa alHawsawi

Morocco to

Lithuania

02/18/05

N787W

Khalid alSharif

Afghanistan to

Libya

04/21/05

N740JA

Mustafa alMehdi

Afghanistan to

Libya

04/21/05

N740JA

Abu Faraj

al-Libi

Afghanistan to Romania (via

Jordan)

05/25/05

N450DR

-N308AB

Abu

Munthir alMaghrebi

Tunisia to

Romania

05/26/05

N308AB

Abd alRahim alNashiri

Romania to

Lithuania

10/05/05

N308AB/

N787W

No.

Prisoner

Rendition

Date

Aircraft

Khaled

Sheikh Mohammed

Romania to

Lithuania

10/05/05

N308AB/

N787W

3 prisoners

Romania to

Afghanistan (via

Jordan)

11/05/05

N1HCN248AB

Ibn Sheikh

al-Libi

Jordan to

Afghanistan

11/05/05

N1HCN248AB

Abd alRahim alNashiri

Lithuania

to Afghanistan

03/25/06

N733MA

/N740E

Abu

Zubaydah

Lithuania

to Afghanistan

03/25/06

N733MA

/N740E

Khaled

Sheikh Mohammed

Lithuania

to Afghanistan

03/25/06

N733MA

/N740E

Mustafa alHawsawi

Lithuania

to Afghanistan

03/25/06

N733MA

/N740E

Ibn Sheikh

al-Libi

Afghanistan to

Libya

04/12/06

N1HC

Abu Abdallah

Afghanistan to

Saudi Arabia

07/26/06

N17ND

No.

Prisoner

Rendition

Date

Aircraft

Marwan alJabour

Afghanistan to Jordan

07/26/06

N17ND

Abd al-Bari

al-Filistini

Afghanistan to Jordan

07/26/06

N17ND

This group comprises a total of 17 aircraft.

N63MU, the aircraft identified as carrying out the

rendition of Abu Zubaydah and al-Nashiri into Poland

in December 2002, is also documented as having carried out circuits 6, 11, 21 and 49 in the above list.

There is therefore a detailed and consistent public

record showing that the three aircraft identified as

flying through Poland, at the time of specific rendition

missions, also carried out multiple other rendition

missions into other countries at different times.

It is implausible that the sustained correlation of

data between dozens of prisoner movement dates and

aircraft movement dates could be explained by some

other cause. For each of the missions noted above, we

offer an account of the evidence underlying its identification in Appendix 2 of CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED,

including links to all cited documents.79

79 CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED, supra, at 291-380.

E. The SSCI Executive Summary and Poland: “Detention Site Blue.”

The SSCI Executive Summary and its

color-coded pseudonyms

Many, but not all, of the rendition missions listed

above had been identified by the time of Abu

Zubaydah’s application to the ECtHR in May 2013. At

that time, the public record reflected that Poland had

hosted a black site, that this site had commenced operation on December 5, 2002, and finished operating

on September 22, 2003, and that during the course of

its operation it had held Abu Zubaydah and alNashiri, among others.80

As outlined above, the data underlying these conclusions were drawn from declassified government

documents and a panoply of contractual and logistical

records.81

In December 2014, the Senate Select Committee

on Intelligence released a redacted version of the Executive Summary of its study of the secret detention

program.82 The process of the writing and eventual

publication of this report has been widely recounted,

not least in a major feature film.83 The Senate report

was prepared on the basis of “more than six million

pages of CIA materials, to include operational cables,

intelligence reports, internal memoranda and emails,

80 See supra, I.B and I.C.

81 See supra, I.B and I.C.

82 See SSCI Executive Summary, supra.

83 See THE REPORT (Vice Studios 2019).

briefing materials, interview transcripts, contracts,

and other records.”84

The SSCI Executive Summary, while not purporting to provide a complete record of events in the program as a whole or in any one location, offers detailed

insights into some events in specific locations.85 These

locations are denoted throughout the report by pseudonymised but consistently applied color-codes: Detention Site Green, Detention Site Blue, Detention

Site Cobalt and so on.86

As was immediately recognized by journalists and

others, these color-coded pseudonyms mapped precisely onto the list of detention sites already publicly

known to have been in operation.87 Indeed, the Washington Post provided a correlation of country locations

84 SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, COMMITTEE

STUDY OF THE CIA’S DETENTION AND INTERROGATION PROGRAM,

Foreword 5, approved December 13, 2012, updated for release

April 3, 2014, declassification revisions December 3, 2014

https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/141209SSCI-Torture-Report-Executive-Summary-Foreword.pdf.

85 See generally SSCI Executive Summary, supra, at 11-170.

86 SSCI Executive Summary, supra, at 10.

See, e.g., Adam Goldman & Julie Tate, Decoding the secret

black sites on the Senate’s report on the CIA interrogation program, WASH. POST, Dec. 9, 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/09/decoding-the-secret-black-sites-on-the-senates-report-on-the-cia-interrogationprogram; Greg Miller & Adam Goldman, Rise and fall of CIA’s

overseas prisons traced in Senate report on interrogations, WASH.

POST, Dec. 11, 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/rise-and-fall-of-cias-overseas-prisons-traced-insenate-report-on-interrogations/2014/12/11/067232b4-814311e4-9f38-95a187e4c1f7_story.html; Detention Site Blues, THE

ECONOMIST, Dec. 11, 2014, https://www.economist.com/europe/2014/12/11/detention-site-blues.

and color codes on the very day that the SSCI Executive Summary was released.88 The SSCI Executive

Summary, in other words, demonstrated that the public record surrounding the black site network, as it

stood in 2014, was already accurate.

The SSCI Executive Summary corroborated the

following identifications and chronological data:

● Detention Site Green: Thailand, operational

March 2002 to December 2002;

● Detention Site Cobalt: Afghanistan, operational September 2002 to April 2004;

● Detention Site Blue: Poland, operational December 2002 to September 2003;

● Detention Site Gray: Afghanistan, operational

January 2003 to December 2003;

● Detention Site Black: Romania, operational

September 2003 to November 2005;

● Detention Sites Indigo and Maroon: Guantánamo Bay, operational September 2003 to April

2004;

● Detention Site Orange: Afghanistan, operational April 2004 to September 2006;

● Detention Site Violet: Lithuania, operational

February 2005 to March 2006; and

● Detention Site Brown: Afghanistan, operational March 2006 to March 2008.

ii.

Data pertaining to Detention Site Blue

corroborates data relating to Poland

88 Goldman & Tate, Decoding the secret black sites, supra.

In relation to Detention Site Blue, the SSCI Executive Summary offers the following explicit information about prisoner movements:

● “In December 2002, when Detention Site Green

was closed, al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah were

rendered to Detention Site Blue.”89 The first

chronological reference to al-Nashiri’s detention in Site Blue in the SSCI Executive Summary is from December 5, 2002, consistent with

his arriving at the site on that day.90

● Ramzi bin al-Shibh was sent to Blue between

February 1 and 9, 2003.91 An interrogation plan

was prepared for him between March 1 and 9,

2003.92 By February 11, 2003, he was held in

Blue.93

● Khaled Sheikh Mohammed was sent to Blue in

early March 2003. On March 6, 2003, he was

being held in Cobalt.94 He was in Blue by the

following day, March 7, 2003.95

● Abu Yasir al-Jaza’iri was transferred from Cobalt to Blue in March 2003.96

As will be clear from comparison with the above

list of identified renditions, each of these transfers coincides with a flight, on the relevant date, by one of

89 SSCI Executive Summary, supra, at 67.

90 Id. at 67, n. 338.

91 Id.

at 75.

92 Id. at 76.

93 Id. at 78.

94 Id. at 83.

95 Id. at 363.

96 Id. at 103 n.606.

the aircraft known to have participated in the rendition program.

● The transfer of Abu Zubaydah and al-Nashiri,

arriving in Blue on December 5, 2002, coincides

with the flight of N63MU from Thailand to Poland on December 4-5, 2002, discussed above.97

● The transfer of Ramzi bin al-Shibh from detention in a foreign location to Blue between February 1 and 9, 2002, coincides with the flight of

N379P from Morocco to Poland on February 7,

2003.98

● The transfer of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed

from Cobalt to Blue on March 6-7, 2003, coincides with the flight of N379P from Afghanistan

to Poland on March 7, 2003.99

● The transfer of Abu Yasir al-Jaza’iri from Cobalt to Blue in March 2003, coincides with the

flight of N379P from Afghanistan to Poland on

March 25, 2003.100 Analysis of cable identifiers

referenced in the Executive Summary shows

that an EIT request from Blue, relating to Abu

Yasir al-Jaza’iri, was sent between March 24

and 26, 2003.101

97 CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED, Appendix 2, supra, at 311 (Circuit

15).

98 Id. at 314 (Circuit 17).

99 Id. at 316 (Circuit 19).

100 Id. at 317 (Circuit 20).

101 SSCI Executive Summary, supra, at 103 n.606; CIA TORTURE

UNREDACTED, Appendix 2, supra at 317 (Circuit 20).

Further findings relating to Poland emerge from

comparison of the SSCI Executive Summary with

other data:

● Analysis of cables referenced in the SSCI Executive Summary shows that the account of Khallad (also known as Walid) bin Attash being

“threatened with rectal rehydration” came from

Blue, timestamped July 22, 2003.102

● Analysis of all cables sent from Detention Site

Blue (“Blue Series”) cited in the SSCI Executive

Summary shows that they constitute a numbered chronological sequence of 320 cables running from 10006, dated December 7, 2002, to

12825, dated September 13, 2003, matching the

operational dates of the Polish Black Site which

were from December 4, 2002, to September 22,

2003.103

● “In [June] 2003, the CIA arranged for a ‘temporary patch’ involving placing two CIA detainees

(Ramzi bin al-Shibh and ‘Abd al-Rahim alNashiri) within an already existing Country [X]

102 On identifying cable provenance and our resulting CIA cable

database, see CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED, supra, at 32-35. In

outline, the cables referenced in the SSCI Executive Summary

fall into a discernible series of groups, correlating with the detention sites they were sent from. We refer to these groups according to the color code for the relevant site, hence we denote

cables from Poland as “Blue Series.” The cable referenced here,

from SSCI Executive Summary, supra, at 100 n.584, is Blue Series no. 12385, timestamped “222045ZJUL03,”—i.e. 2045 universal time on July 22, 2003.

See supra note 79. For the database itself

https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/unredacted/thedata.html.

103

see

detention facility.”104 This coincides with the

flight of N379P from Poland to Morocco on June

6, 2003.105

● The CIA closed Blue in “[September] 2003.”106

At this point prisoners were transferred to Detention Site Black107 and to “CIA facilities on

the grounds of, but separate from, the U.S. military detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay,

Cuba.”108 These three data points coincide with

the flight of N313P on September 22-23, 2003,

from Afghanistan to Poland, Romania, Morocco

and Guantanamo Bay.109

What emerges from the above analysis is that

there is a clear and consistent mapping of events at

Detention Site Blue as discussed in the SSCI Executive Summary, to events in Poland as documented in

other public sources. The flights that have been identified match, in every instance, with the movements

described, and cable correspondence matches, in every

instance, with the timeline set out in public documents.

104 SSCI Executive Summary, supra, at 139. For the methodology

underlying the identification of the month as being June, see CIA

TORTURE UNREDACTED, supra, at 25-26.

105 CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED, Appendix 2, supra, at 320-21

(Circuit 23).

106 SSCI Executive Summary, supra, at 74. For the methodology

underlying the identification of the month as being September,

see CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED, supra, 25-26.

107 SSCI Executive Summary, supra, at 97.

108 SSCI Executive Summary, supra, at 140.

CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED, Appendix 2, supra, at 328-29

(Circuit 31).

109

II. Conclusion

Fifteen years after George W. Bush announced

that the CIA had operated “a separate program” for

the detention and interrogation of prisoners,110 the

U.S. government finds itself in a strange and ultimately untenable position. Study after study, report

after report, emerging from the CIA, DOJ and SSCI,

along with flight record after flight record, flight invoice after invoice, have confirmed, in graphic and

granular detail, what the world already knows: that

the CIA had black sites in Thailand, Poland, Romania,

Lithuania, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay.

It is not merely the case that international and national media have regularly discussed the location

and operation of the various sites and treatment of the

people held in them. It is also a fact that the underlying documents and datasets underpinning these discussions are themselves in the public domain, and in

some cases have been for many years. The body of evidence underpinning Abu Zubaydah’s ECtHR application was already in the public domain in 2013; some

of it was already public in 2010.

Far from being a product of airy speculation, public

knowledge about the RDI program is grounded in information extracted from hundreds of documents.

These documents themselves, and not just the conclusions that specialists have drawn from them, are

freely available to the public. They can be searched

and read by anyone with an internet connection. The

searchable archive of documents relating to the RDI

110 “President Discusses Creation of Military Commissions to Try

Suspected Terrorists”, Sept. 6, 2006, https://georgewbushwhitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/09/200609063.html.

program, maintained by The Rendition Project and

built up between 2011 and 2019, now contains 938

items. These items range “from declassified CIA cables to rendition pilot flight logs, and from corporate

invoices to the first-hand testimony of those held and

tortured.”111 All of these documents are freely and

publicly accessible on The Rendition Project website,

as is the full text of CIA TORTURE UNREDACTED. Many

of these documents have been exhibited to the public

in high-profile museums and galleries, including the

International Center of Photography Museum, New

York; the Imperial War Museum, London; the Zephyr

Museum in Mannheim, Germany; the 2017 Fotografia

Europea festival in Reggio Emilia, Italy and the 2018

Photography Triennale in Hamburg, Germany. Anyone who examines these documents will draw the

same conclusions that have already been drawn by

courts, in academic publications and in the media: Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Thailand and Afghanistan

hosted black sites, and prisoners were held in them.

As a consistent, coherent body of evidence shows,

the events recorded by the SSCI Executive Summary

as occurring in Detention Site Blue occurred in Poland, where incontrovertible evidence establishes that

Abu Zubaydah was held. It was in Poland that unauthorised interrogation techniques, including the use of

a power drill, were practiced, leading to an inquiry by

the CIA Office of Inspector General.112 It was in Poland that the waterboard technique was adapted and

extended, leading a medical officer to write that “in

the new technique we are basically doing a series of

111 https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/index.html.

112 SSCI Executive Summary, supra, at 69-70.

near drownings.”113 And it was in reference to events

in Poland, in January 2003, that the CIA’s chief of interrogations wrote to colleagues, “this is a train wreak

[sic] waiting to happen.”114

The decision of the court of appeals should be affirmed.

Respectfully submitted,

DANIEL M. GREENFIELD

Counsel of Record

RODERICK & SOLANGE

MACARTHUR JUSTICE CENTER

NORTHWESTERN PRITZKER

SCHOOL OF LAW

375 East Chicago Ave.

Chicago, IL 60611

(312) 503-8538

daniel-greenfield@law.northwestern.edu

AUGUST 2021

113 Id. at 86.

114 Id. at 71.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.