Navy Secretly Contracted Jets Used by CIA

Private Companies selling the instruments of illegal torture for Clandestine and Illegal operations Prosecutors in Germany are calling Kidnapping. Gotta Love Industrialist Morality. These planes are modified for prisoner transfer so obviously we have private companies building custom Prison Planes for the CIA, and this contract was made through the Navy for illegal torture operations so you know every dime of this 'defense contract' has been well documented and accounted for eh?

www.nytimes.com...
Navy Secretly Contracted Jets Used by CIA
The Associated Press

Saturday 24 September 2005

San Diego - A branch of the U.S. Navy secretly contracted a 33-plane fleet that included two Gulfstream jets reportedly used to fly terror suspects to countries known to practice torture, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

At least 10 U.S. aviation companies were issued classified contracts in 2001 and 2002 by the obscure Navy Engineering Logistics Office for the "occasional airlift of USN (Navy) cargo worldwide," according to Defense Department documents the AP obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Two of the companies - Richmor Aviation Inc. and Premier Executive Transport Services Inc. - chartered luxury Gulfstreams that flew terror suspects captured in Europe to Egypt, according to U.S. and European media reports. Once there, the men told family members, they were tortured. Authorities in Italy and Sweden have expressed outrage over flights they say were illegal and orchestrated by the U.S. government.

While the Gulfstreams came under scrutiny in 2001, what hasn't been disclosed is the Navy's role in contracting planes involved in operations the CIA terms "rendition" and what Italian prosecutors call kidnapping.

"A lot of us have been focusing on the role of the CIA but also suspecting that certain parts of the armed forces are involved," said Margaret Satterthwaite, a New York University School of Law researcher who has investigated renditions.

The Navy contracts involve more planes than previously reported - other news outlets totaled 26 planes; the AP identified 33 planes.

Italian judges have issued arrest warrants for 19 purported CIA operatives who allegedly snatched a Muslim cleric from Milan in 2003 and flew him to Cairo, according to FAA records cited by the Chicago Tribune, aboard Richmor's Gulfstream IV. The jet belongs to a part-owner of the Boston Red Sox, who told The Boston Globe that the team's logo was covered when the CIA leased the plane. Another case involves two men taken from Sweden to Egypt in 2001 aboard Premier's Gulfstream V.

Neither the CIA nor a Navy spokeswoman at the Pentagon would comment for this story. Officials at the Navy Engineering Logistics Office, or NELO, in Arlington, Va., didn't respond to messages requesting comment.

Flying people from country to country where they could get legal immunity for torture, that's great. I'm proud to know my our dollars, indeed our pride as a nation and the lives of our young soldiery, are so nobly spent setting such an example as this for the free world...
This privatization of warfare should be a real scary kind of thing for people who know where we're headed, coporations were given the same rights to privacy as citizens during the Industrial revolution, which makes them above political reproach, or public scrutiny, yet here we have them running around manipulating, er I mean lobbying and creating foriegn policy in their Private interests. You got Bush suspending the Posse Comitatus here at home for civil unrest, so don't feel like all this in in some desert half way around the world.

Wow I thought the baseball fans here would be all over the Part Owner of the Boston Red Sox leasing a Plane to the CIA to torture people with. Whats up with baseball anyway? Remember the Simpsons episode that had Bart wearing a tin foil hat? He may hve been on to something afterall.

I wanted to provide a link to this thread by goosdawg...CIA Torture Jet wrecks with 4 Tons of COCAINE
Crazy stuff.
Ironic, but I just saw on the National News last night that Major League Baseball is going through a sweeping new crack down on their drug policy. Guess the ship isn't comming in lol.

Chief Constable Michael Todd, one of the guys who was investigating the CIA torture flights just plunged to his death off a cliff in Snowdonia.

Nigel Bunyan, Nick Allen and Gordon Rayner
UK Telegraph
March 12, 2008
A chief constable who plunged to his death in Snowdonia had been drinking before he was found dead at the bottom of a cliff.
Michael Todd had also used his mobile phone to text members of his family in the hours before he died, sources said.
It was believed he may have been texting up to the moment he jumped or fell off the cliff.
One source said the high flying officer was “reeking of gin” when he was found. A half drunk bottle of gin was found nearby.
He was partially clothed, although it was unclear whether he had taken his own clothing off or it was ripped off in the fall.

The sourced article mentions him drinking, having an affair, talking about suicide, the text messages he sent which undoubtedly turn out to be some cryptic suicide note, it mentions just about everything about the man except that he investigated the CIA's secret torture flights. Cooincidence? Probably, but then, aren't they all...
I was under the impression that they had indeed found evidence to support those allegations, at least that was what they were reporting last year. Crazy thing is, now that he's unsuspicously dead, the story is immediately being um.. altered...

Source
North Wales Police said his death was not suspicious....
Todd led an investigation into claims by human rights groups that British airports were used by the US Central Intelligence Agency to move terrorism suspects to secret prisons. His inquiry found no evidence to support the allegations.

Disgusting.

Its that 'technically' correct term


'' we do not torture people ''
...

'' but we do transport the people to be tortured, at our request ''

I doubt the redsox guy directly knew what was happening.
He probably owns some jets, under some company, and simply hears from his advisor

'' Leasing of Jets up 25% this year sir, ''

It is a pitty all those brave men dying on the battlefields of france died to protect freedoms and rights that a simple flick of a pen can take away.

As they say, the pen is mightier after all.

a reply to: Agit8dChop
I'm not a baseball fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I think you're probably right. Jets are leased all the time and it's not likely they knew but then again it's not something I've really dug into. I was shocked to find out that some of these flights went through AVL though, hell that's right down the road from me and it's a small regional airport. I think it was WLOS that actually carried the story, but that was way back when news wasn't prepackaged to the extent it is now.