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Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base

Revision as of 11:51, 12 June 2006 by Artificial Intelligence (talk | contribs)

The Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base is a military base located near the Black Sea city of Constanta in Romania. [1] The base was used "as a hub to transfer US soldiers and military property into Iraq during the early stage of the Iraqi war that started in March 2003." [2]

According to a June 2006 report in the Sunday Herald (UK), a fax intercepted by Swiss intelligence has revealed that the base is the site of a secret CIA prison:[3]

"The fax, datelined November 10, 2005, 8.24pm, was sent by the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, in Cairo, to his ambassador in London. It revealed that the US had detained at least 23 Iraqi and Afghani captives at a military base called Mihail Kogalniceanu in Romania, and added that similar secret prisons were also to be found in Poland, Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria.
"...The fax, intercepted by Swiss intelligence, indicates that Egypt has such proof. It is headed: 'The Egyptians have access to sources which confirm the existence of American secret prisons'.
"Its shocking contents would never have been uncovered if it hadn’t been for a conscientious surveillance officer with the Swiss secret service, stationed at an eavesdropping centre in Zimmerwald, south of Berne. On November 16, six days after the fax was first sent via satellite from Cairo to London, the officer intercepted it using the Onyx eavesdropping system. The officer marked their personal coded identifier, wbm, on the page and put the information down in a COMINT SAT report. The intercepted fax was given the reference number S160018TER00000115."

Contents

Human Rights Watch Report: November 2005

The November 7, 2005, Human Rights Watch "Statement on U.S. Secret Detention Facilities in Europe" stated:

"The records show that the N313P plane landed the next day, September 23, 2003, at the Mihail Kogalniceanu military airfield in Romania. The flight records indicate that the plane flew on to Morocco the same day, and then to Guantanamo Bay. The Department of Defense, which releases information about all detainee transfers to Guantanamo, released no statement about a transfer to Guantanamo around this date.
"According to our research, the United States has been using the Mihail Kogalniceanu airfield in Romania for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002, and the base has been closed to the public and journalists since early 2004. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited Romania and the Mihail Kogalniceanu base in October 2004. The N313P plane also flew from Kabul to Timisoara airport in Romania on January 25, 2004."

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2001

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2004

  • Photo, DefenseLink.mil: "Romanian Minister of Defense Ioan Mircea Pascu escorts Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and military officials on a tour of Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in Constanta, Romania, on Oct 11, 2004. DoD photo by Master Sgt. James M. Bowman, U.S. Air Force." Press arrows for more photographs in series.

2005

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