ShannonWatch activist Ed Horgan due in court in Ennis Weds. 20 May 2009

national | rights, freedoms and repression | press release Sunday May 17, 2009 18:49 by Coilín ÓhAiseadha

Former UN peacekeeper questions Garda instructions not to search CIA craft

A former Irish army officer and decorated UN peacekeeper, Dr. Edward Horgan, is due to appear in Shannon District Court on Wednesday 20 May to answer charges arising from his demands that airport security officers and members of the Garda search a CIA jet at Shannon Airport on June 18th last.

Horgan arrived at the airport shortly before 8 am to photograph the CIA jet, registered as N54PA, whose flight logs showed that it had landed at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on dates including 3 June, 2008. The jet had refuelled at Shannon on 13-14 June and informants in the United States sent word that it was on its way to Shannon again on the morning in question. The jet arrived as scheduled at about 08.05.

Having taken photographs, Horgan entered the airport security lodge to request that airport security officers search the CIA-operated aircraft for evidence of possible breaches of the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) and the Irish UNCAT Act of 2002. This demand was denied. Horgan refused to leave until such search had been conducted. A senior airport security officer, James Watson, subsequently arrived and also refused to search.

At Horgan’s request, two other human rights activists telephoned the Garda station at Shannon to request that members search the jet. Garda Power and Garda Lyne soon arrived but refused to search the jet. Garda Sergeant Kevin O’Hagan also arrived soon after, and also refused to search, saying that he would not search without instructions from his superiors.

Horgan eventually left to tend to other business, but subsequently received a summons to answer charges of impeding an airport security officer and refusing to leave the security lodge, under the Air Navigation and Transport Acts of 1988 and 1998.

For further details of events of 18 June, please see Horgan’s report on Indymedia:
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/88036

Edward Horgan is a former commandant in the Irish army, who was decorated for his role in United Nations peacekeeping missions in Cyprus and the Middle East. Having last summer submitted a thesis on the need for reform of the UN, he holds a PhD in international relations from the University of Limerick. Horgan is the international secretary of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance and a member of the ShannonWatch monitoring group, which publishes details of US military and CIA traffic at Shannon on its website at www.shannonwatch.org .

ShannonWatch lists LearJet N54PA as one of a series of CIA jets that have refuelled at Shannon Airport in recent years.

Eurocontrol documents (flight logs and payment data) obtained by the European Parliament’s TDIP committee have linked several previous aircraft to the so-called “extraordinary renditions” programme, whose victims have been abducted and tortured at Guantánamo Bay or in other countries:
1. Gulfstream V jet N379P flew from Islamabad to Rabat on 21 July, 2002, when it was probably carrying Binyam Mohamed, and transited at Shannon on 22 July, 2002.
2. A Boeing 737 registered as N313P transited at Shannon on 16 January, 2004, and is thought to have transported Binyam Mohamed from Rabat to Kabul six days later.
3. And Gulfstream IV jet N85VM probably carried the CIA's torture victim Abu Omar from Ramstein to Cairo on 17 February, 2003, and transited at Shannon on 18 February, on its way back to Washington.

Human rights activists complain that Garda detectives have neglected their duties by failing to search CIA aircraft for evidence of such abductions.

When John Lannon of ShannonWatch and Amnesty International Limerick made a request at Shannon Garda Station to have N54PA searched on the day Horgan photographed it, he was told that a “policy decision” had been made that there were no grounds to search the plane.

Accordingly, Horgan has made an application for Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy to appear in court to clarify what instructions senior officers have issued to members of the Garda regarding searches of aircraft operated by the CIA.

The case will be heard at a special sitting of Shannon District Court in Ennis courthouse at 10.30 on Wednesday morning. Horgan will be defended by Pat Daly, solicitor, supported by counsel.

For interviews, please contact Conor Cregan at 087 698 1831 .