October 4, 2001: NATO Meeting Sets Stage for Secret CIA Rendition Flights

A secret arrangement is made in Brussels, Belgium, by all members of NATO. Lord George Robertson, British defense secretary and later NATO’s secretary general, will later explain NATO members agree to provide “blanket overflight clearances for the United States and other allies’ aircraft for military flights related to operations against terrorism.” [London Times, 11/25/2007] Over 700 prisoners will fly over NATO countries on their way to the US-controlled Guantanamo prison in Cuba beginning in 2002 (see January 14, 2002-2005).
Conditions of Transfer – According to a 2007 report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC—see March 15, 2009), detainees flown on CIA rendition flights would be:
Photographed both clothed and naked;
Subjected to body cavity (rectal) searches, with some detainees later alleging that they were administered suppositories of some sort;
Dressed in a diaper and a tracksuit, with earphones placed over the ears (through which shatteringly loud music would sometimes be played), a blindfold, black goggles, and sometimes cotton wool placed over the eyes;
Shackled by hands and feet, and thus carried onto an airplane, where they would remain, without toilet privileges, from one to 30 hours.
The prisoners would usually be allowed to sit upright, but the ICRC will later find that on “some occasions detainees were transported lying flat on the floor of the plane… with their hands cuffed behind their backs,” causing them “severe pain and discomfort,” as they were moved from one location to another. [New York Review of Books, 3/15/2009]