Vilnius, October 21: Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said Tuesday she had “indirect suspicions” that the Baltic state had hosted a secret CIA prison.
“I do not have a clear answer. I was in Brussels when it could have been happening. I have indirect suspicions. Not only I, but also the international community,” Grybauskaite told reporters.
Grybauskaite took office as president in July after having served since 2004 as Lithuania’s member of the European Union’s Brussels-based executive arm, the European Commission.
She has pledged to investigate the claims, which surfaced in August and have been denied by the Lithuanian government.
The US station ABC, citing unnamed ex-CIA officials, named Lithuania as one country that hosted such prisons.
The facility in Lithuania — an ex-Soviet republic that is now a staunch US ally — was allegedly closed in 2005.
The ABC report also revived earlier allegations that Poland and Romania hosted secret prisons. The governments of both countries have denied the claims, although the head of a 2006 Polish inquiry this year said he had had “justified suspicions”.
The issue of a possible Lithuanian CIA site has fed into a debate about accepting prisoners from the jail at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Lithuania — which in February said it had been asked to take in two inmates — said last week that it would not accept any until it was cleared of the CIA allegations.
Grybauskaite underscored that Tuesday, and said it was not just up to Vilnius to refute the claims.
“Both Lithuania and the United States should give answers to these questions,” she said.
If the allegations were proven, Lithuania must apologise, or it could risk becoming a target for terrorism, she warned.
—Agencies