How bizarre is this?
The president of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaite, suspects that Lithuania hosted a secret CIA prison for terror suspects in 2004 and 2005, as alleged by an ABC News report last August. She suspects it, but isn’t sure. And apparently she can’t just summon a few officials, or make a few phone calls, and find out.
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said Tuesday she had “indirect suspicions” that the Baltic state hosted a secret CIA prison for terror suspects, as a senior European official called for a beefed-up probe.
“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.
She has pledged to probe the claims, which surfaced in August and have been denied by the Lithuanian government.
So she has ordered an official investigation:
The president of Lithuania called for an official investigation Tuesday into an ABC News.com exclusive report in August that the CIA housed a secret prison for al Qaeda suspects in Lithuania for more than a year beginning in 2004.
“If this is true,” President Dalia Grybauskaite said, “Lithuania has to clean up, accept responsibility, apologize, and promise that it will never happen again.”
At a press conference with the Council of Europe Human Rights Commission, Grybauskaite announced the investigation after it was clear a previous attempt by the Lithuanian Parliament was insufficient, according to a Council of Europe official.
In August, ABC News reported that the CIA built a secret prison in a residential section of Vilnius from September 2004 through November 2005. The CIA used the prison to detain and interrogate top level al Qaeda prisoners captured around the world after 9/11.
She also doesn’t seem to have heard about the official U.S. policy of Don’t Look Back:
(Grybauskaite) 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.
Or maybe that’s just her way of investigating whether that’s actually our official policy?