Official: no proof of illegal CIA activities

BRUSSELS, Belgium — Investigations into reports that U.S. agents shipped prisoners through European airports to secret detention centers have produced no evidence of illegal CIA activities, the European Union's anti-terror coordinator said Thursday.

The investigations also have not turned up any proof of secret renditions of terror suspects on EU territory, Gijs de Vries told a European Parliament committee investigating the allegations.

The European Parliament's inquiry and a similar one by the continent's leading human-rights watchdog are looking into whether U.S. intelligence agents interrogated al-Qaida suspects at secret prisons in Eastern Europe and transported some on secret flights through Europe.

But investigators have not identified any human-rights violations, despite more than 50 hours of testimony by human-rights activists and individuals who claimed to have been abducted by U.S. intelligence agents, de Vries said.

"We've heard all kinds of allegations, impressions; we've heard also refutations. It's up to your committee to weigh if they are true. It does not appear to be proven beyond reasonable doubt," he said. "There has not been, to my knowledge, evidence that these illegal renditions have taken place."

De Vries was invited to appear before the investigating committee Thursday and made his comments in response to members' questions.

De Vries came under sharp criticism from the EU parliamentarians for refusing to consider earlier testimonies from a German and a Canadian who described to the committee how they were kidnapped and imprisoned by foreign agents, and from a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan who alleged that British intelligence services used information obtained under torture.

"There is so much circumstantial evidence, you can't close your eyes from the fact that this is probably happening," Dutch deputy Kathalijne Buitenweg said.

The U.S. has never confirmed or denied the renditions. The committee plans to interview former and current CIA officials and Bush administration officials.

Suspected militant

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A suspected Islamic militant linked to top al-Qaida leaders was killed Thursday along with a security official in a gunfight at a roadblock near the Afghan border, according to an intelligence agent and the Pakistani army.

Also Thursday, militants ambushed a convoy of Pakistani troops in a northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border, killing seven soldiers and wounding 22, an army spokesman said.

Two local intelligence agents said the slain militant was an Arab and had links with al-Qaida.

Another said the man's body had been transported to a hospital for a DNA test.

— The Associated Press