The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has disproved the information about CIA secret prisons being operated on Ukrainian soil.
Press secretary of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Vassili Philipchuk, says "the very idea of raising such a question is absurd". At the same time he admitted that the Foreign Ministry holds no authority over prisons in the country.
The Ukrainian Department of Penitentiary Institutions and the Security Service have also disproved the information about CIA secret prisons being present on Ukrainian soil.
Recently Swiss media, citing Swiss Military Intelligence sources, reported that CIA secret prisons do exist in a number of Eastern European countries, including Ukraine. The information of the Swiss intelligence is based on a fax message sent by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry to the Egyptian Embassy in London. The Egyptian authorities claimed in the message that 23 Iraqi and Afghani citizens had been interrogated at a military base near the city of Konstanza on September 21 and 22, 2005. The document also mentioned Ukraine as a place where similar secret prisons are located.
The Swiss authorities refrain from commenting on the situation as yet. The Swiss Defense Ministry intends to conduct an investigation of its own and find out how the leaking of a secret document to the press has become possible.
At the same time, in connection with the new scandal flaring up, Ukrainian media have recollected a strange unofficial visit the CIA director Porter Goss paid to Kiev last December. Reports of the visit appeared in the press only a week after it had been completed. At the time it was assumed that the visit was connected with the gas dispute between "Gazprom" and Ukraine.
Today suppositions are being made that issues related, among others, to secret prisons on Ukrainian soil may have been discussed at the Goss-Yushchenko meeting.
Press secretary of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Vassili Philipchuk, says "the very idea of raising such a question is absurd". At the same time he admitted that the Foreign Ministry holds no authority over prisons in the country.
The Ukrainian Department of Penitentiary Institutions and the Security Service have also disproved the information about CIA secret prisons being present on Ukrainian soil.
Recently Swiss media, citing Swiss Military Intelligence sources, reported that CIA secret prisons do exist in a number of Eastern European countries, including Ukraine. The information of the Swiss intelligence is based on a fax message sent by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry to the Egyptian Embassy in London. The Egyptian authorities claimed in the message that 23 Iraqi and Afghani citizens had been interrogated at a military base near the city of Konstanza on September 21 and 22, 2005. The document also mentioned Ukraine as a place where similar secret prisons are located.
The Swiss authorities refrain from commenting on the situation as yet. The Swiss Defense Ministry intends to conduct an investigation of its own and find out how the leaking of a secret document to the press has become possible.
At the same time, in connection with the new scandal flaring up, Ukrainian media have recollected a strange unofficial visit the CIA director Porter Goss paid to Kiev last December. Reports of the visit appeared in the press only a week after it had been completed. At the time it was assumed that the visit was connected with the gas dispute between "Gazprom" and Ukraine.
Today suppositions are being made that issues related, among others, to secret prisons on Ukrainian soil may have been discussed at the Goss-Yushchenko meeting.
