News One Article | Reuters.com

News One Article | Reuters.com: "

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - The United States flew detainees to other countries where they would be tortured and European governments probably knew about it, the head of a European investigation into the controversy said on Tuesday.

But Swiss senator Dick Marty said in a preliminary report for the Council of Europe human rights watchdog that he had found no irrefutable evidence to confirm allegations that the CIA operated secret detention centers in Europe.

His report kept pressure on the CIA and European governments over the allegations that the U.S. intelligence agency flew prisoners through European airports to jails in third countries, but critics said it offered no hard new evidence.

The September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. landmarks sparked a U.S. global war on terrorism against al Qaeda and led to the invasion of Iraq. Public opinion has hardened in Europe since deadly bomb attacks in London last July and in Madrid in March, 2004.

"There is a great deal of coherent, convergent evidence pointing to the existence of a system of 'relocation' or 'outsourcing of torture'," Marty told the 46-nation Council, based in the eastern French city of Strasbourg.

He said it had been proved that "individuals have been abducted, deprived of their liberty and transported to different destinations in Europe, to be handed over to countries in which they have suffered degrading treatment and torture."

He estimated that more than 100 people had been involved in "renditions" -- delivering prisoners to jails in third countries, where they may have been mistreated or tortured.

"It is highly unlikely that European governments, or at least their intelligence services, were unaware," he said.

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