The Beger tapes transcript – English version

Here is a rough and ready transcript of the ‘Polish Watergate’ tapes.

Renata Beger is in the hotel where members of parliament stay when they are in town. Opposite her is Adam Lipinski, vice chairman of the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS). This is the first of three days of meetings.

September 22

AL. – So are you with the other group of five [the breakaway group of lawmakers who broke from Samoobrona and want to remain in the coalition]?

RB – I am talking about myself.

AL – So it means that the group of five people, that means six. You would like to join PiS and they will go to that [parliamentary] club….or maybe they are creating another group…..so it’s good…what are your expectations?

RB – Mmm…as I said...

AL – Meaning the Secretary of State for Agriculture, yeah?

RB – Yeah, immediately

AL – You know, its no problem at all….because we have lots of vacancies…lots….so no problem. And the other people…?

RB - They…

AL - I prefer if they didn’t push it…the Secretary of State…

RB – No, no…they would be speaking for themselves.

AL – Aha…

RB – And I am sure, 100%, about three of them…the other two are, maybe…

AL – You know, there are different options…some people just want to be re-elected…so we have some possibilities with them …for example, you can come to a deal…if anyone wanted to…with [Roman] Giertych [leader of coalition member, far right LPR]. Giertych has some places with blank spots [on his electoral lists for the local elections coming up in November]…if you match them up, some can join LPR. Giertych really wants to, let’s say, puff himself up…and there maybe is a guarantee of re-election with LPR. We can talk about PiS as well, you have a wide area for maneuver here.

Film is edited

RB – Let’s talk about me first

AL – Your proposition is the Secretary of State for agriculture and joining PiS. One talk to the president [of the party Jaroslaw Kaczynski], sincerely speaking…

RB – Yeah but I was talking about much more…

AL – Meaning?

RB – About my court case [about making up sponsorship signatures before standing as an MP].

AL – And how do you imagine solving this?

RB – That’s your problem, not mine. I told Wojciech [the other PiS negotiator].

AL – There is no point in cheating you. I would do it this way: you should meet an expert on that…you explain what you mean and that person will explain how it will go. If there is something…you know, I don’t know about this, he, will tell you and you take the decision. If there are some things going on then you can’t stop them.

RB – No, you can’t.

AL – I don’t know, but if you like I will find out and tell you.

another edit

RB – We have talked about the parliamentary club, position, the top place on the list in my region.

AL – The Pila region?

RB – Yeah, Pila. Mr Kraczkowski was there now [sic].

AL – I get it. I’ll make notes…[starts making notes of what she is demanding, like writing a shopping list]…

RB – And of course, jobs for my people. Because part of my people are coming with me. The local elections. They were already mentioned on the list. I am interested in two high places.

AL – Not so fast…[tries to keep up with what she is saying with his pen]

RB – Yeah.

AL – How do you mean?

BR =- Two high places. One I can give to the name of someone called Beger. [goes through list she has written out before hand so as not to forget something].

AL – OK, so…

BR – And I have underlined, I want this from you in writing. I said to Wojciech and others who contacted me that I want it signed.

AL – Mmm, you know, I am not sure if that’s possible. We can…make a deal.

RB – I want the signature of the PM [Jarosalw Kaczynski]. He is the one who has the authority.

AL – But you know, we can make a deal, because…

RB – We are playing for high stakes.

AL – And you know, I think that the PM, he can guarantee the nomination for secretary of state. You know, I mean…we can come to a verbal agreement that you will be secretary of state. You can believe me, or not. But let’s assume that you believe me. Secretary of state is no problem.

RB – This is straight talking.

AL – The top of the Pila list, we can come to a deal. You can have PiS’s declaration that we guarantee you the local government parliament. A declaration by the party’s chairman or by the chief of the zarzad glowny [?],…somehow signed by [Kaczysnki]. The other things … of course not.

September 25 Lipinski, who sounded very confident of what he was saying in the meeting before, suddenly starts to get less so. Up until now the negotiations are what you would expect from the horse trading of coalition politics. But now things take a turn for the worse. It’s here in this session that Lipinski brings up what has been interpreted by most Poles as a bribe.

RB – And what about our agreement?

AL – So, um…first you, must have talked to someone else about your demands?

RB – I talked to Kuchczysnki [head of the PiS MPs in parliament].

AL. – Ah…

RB – He invited me.

AL – I understand… it's OK, this is not an accusation, but I don’t want to be the guilty one, as I promised that…I have spoken to the PM [J Kaczynski]. He has not accepted the position of secretary of state, so far. I’m being straight.

RB – Yeah, we are being straight [actually she is really starting to get the bit between her teeth here and is stringing him along…].

AL – That’s clear. He has not accepted it yet. That way is blocked now, if I can say so. The switch of Samoobrina people, because now its that thing about the Promissory Note [if they leave Samoobrona]. The MPs are just scared.

Some time later...and here comes the bribe...…

AL – I spoke today to Minister Ziobro [Minister of the Interior] and he says that as far as he knows, after talking to lawyers, Lepper can use the … it can take a few months. But he can’t take assets if the MPs react quickly.

It will work this way: he uses the promissory note, MPs protest, the promissory note is blocked. The court case happens and the court case is won. Ziobro says that this case is won.

RB - I have the impression that if there are some MPs who are just waiting for my decision, then you could protect me financially, just in case…and others will follow me..

AL – We were thinking today, if not setting up…Hmm… theoretically you could even the charge parliament this money (over 100,000 dollars each member of parliament].. if Lepper…theoretically it’s possible.

RB – How? In what way?

AL – Well, ummm. parliament….the debt collector can take away until the MPs protest and parliament would provide this money somehow, I don’t know how, I am not a lawyer.

RB – You mean, you would finance it, yeah?

AL – Yeah, because we thought about setting up a fund which would provide the money for these MPs until the case is solved. If, God save us, the debt collector comes in.

September 26, with a different negotiator.

WM – What could harm you is.. for example, you just come in from nowhere and get the position [of minister]…better to wait two or three weeks, otherwise it might seem like a obvious trade off which would bring the [status of the position of minister] down.

RB – Like Sosnierz [who left an opposition party and walked into a company with that party’s connections], for example?

WM – I don’t know, not my area. I don’t give a damn about Sosnierz. It wasn’t good to nominate him now, but so what. You should wait a while. You joined, fact. Because you wanted to, and then we will see. But don’t give up on that. And after two weeks, and it all calms down. Then you can get nominated.

RB – Lipinksi didn’t say so.

WM – No, don’t push it immediately because they will kill us. You know, those who just take, lose. That person loses because he has been corrupted because he went for something. But no, he went for it because he was convinced about it…..

Link

Poland - government has to go!

PLease see photos at http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/09/352063.html

Demonstration at Wiejska Street (Country Road) was started yesterday around 10am by the members of municipial (self-government) entente 'Our City'.

'We protest here against political corruption. We'll be here for very short period: just as we will receive information that Mr J Kaczynski [president] resigned, we'll stop' - said representant of 'Our City' to one of the medias.


In early afternoon (1 pm) polititians of SLD, SDLP, PD ('Left' and left 'out of party order' opposition) joined togehter with their youth clubs members, They brought banner 'PiS[1] - Paranoia and Schizophrenia'. One minute of silence was celebrated in the name of IVth Polish Reich death (main PiS catchword during the elections).

The demonstration was populated by PO (Citizens' Platform - Polish liberals), Self-defence (former co-governing rural-conservative party), Zieloni 2004 (Greens 2004), Rationale (anticatolics), Workers Democracy and Anarchistic Federation.

Protesters held banners "Fuck of duffer" [2], "PiS - Criminals and Ratters", "Parties - thanks", "Enough!", "Ducks [3], Zoliboz [their district] is ashamed of you!".
The demonstration is peaceful. The only 'incident' was burning the banner of the PO by editor of Critical Politics (leftish free thought magazine), Sławomir Sierakowski and Olek Pawłowski, activist of Schools' Pupils Initiative. There were also some smaller verbal arguments...

---------------

'They came to raise their objection against corrupted government. They met a lot of from PO and SLD. Luckly there was aslo opposition of neoliberals (PO AND SLD) from Greens 2004, Rationale, Workers Democracy and anrachists. Those who did not want to stand with PO and SLD had opportunity to stand with someone else.

[...]

It is a pity that there is no more of lefts, anit-capitalists or/and alterglobalists. [...] We should not give the field to liberals.

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Taped bribe offer hits Poland PM

POLAND was plunged into political chaos yesterday after a secretly filmed videotape showed a member of the ruling party trying to buy the support of a woman politician.
Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski was bombarded by opposition calls to resign and dissolve parliament because his main policy plank - to combat corruption - had effectively been destroyed.

"A government that attempts to corrupt parliament cannot rule any longer," said Donald Tusk, leader of the opposition centre-right Civic Platform (PO).

"Today, all decent people are demanding the immediate resignation of Jaroslaw Kaczynski."

An opinion poll published by the Rzeczpospolita daily, however, showed that new elections would merely reproduce the current stalemate, giving the PO (which has 223 seats) a definite edge over Mr Kaczynski's Law and Justice party.

But it would still be eight seats short of an absolute majority and would have no obvious coalition partner.

The alleged bribery case was an attempt by Mr Kaczynski's team to break out of this impasse.

Until last week it had formed a coalition with the Self-Defence Party, a radical farmers' grouping led by volatile pig-farmer Andrzej Lepper.

Mr Lepper, who was deputy prime minister, broke away from the governing coalition after refusing to approve Mr Kaczynski's draft budget, which included cuts in agricultural subsidies. Since then, the Prime Minister has been struggling to woo dissident members of the Self-Defence Party.

The covertly recorded film - broadcast on private channel TVN on Tuesday night local time - shows one of Mr Kaczynski's close confidants, Adam Lipinski, in a hotel room trying to persuade Renata Beger, the Self-Defence Party deputy, to stay with the Government.

Ms Beger admitted that she tipped off the television station.

Ms Beger was a vulnerable target - she was under investigation for faking voter signatures - but, aware of the hidden camera, she threw her weight about during the conversation.

In return for her defection, she demanded the post of deputy agriculture minister.

"That's no problem, we have many free positions," Mr Lipinski told her.

After consulting with his bosses, he had to backtrack. Instead, he offered her free legal advice - and financial help to pay off her debts to the Self-Defence Party. It was this financial offer that has been considered a bribe.

Mr Lepper has made every member of his party pledge E140,000 ($237,600) in return for help at elections. At the end of a legislative period, the politician gets back 80 per cent of this deposit. But if a politician defects, he or she forfeits the whole sum.

This legally dubious system has been enough to keep Mr Lepper's shambolic party together.

Mr Lipinski saw his offer not as a bribe but as a liberation for an unhappy politician.

"This was normal coalition-building," Mr Lipinski said.

"I take nothing back and intend to continue persuading deputies to join our parliamentary majority."

Mr Kaczynski's only chance of mustering a majority in parliament now is to strike a deal with a second farmers' party, the PSL. But it broke off all negotiations yesterday, expressing shock at the revelations.

Link

Coalition talks in Poland fall apart amid politicking

CAUGHT IN THE ACT?: A video allergedly showed representatives from the governing party offering a lawmaker a high public office to win his support

AP , WARSAW
Friday, Sep 29, 2006, Page 6
A small party has broken off coalition talks with the government, accusing the ruling conservatives of sleazy conduct and pushing Poland further toward the possibility of early elections.

Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski has been working to rebuild the majority his government lost when it severed ties with a coalition partner last week.

He said the government was willing to face elections, if it had to.

right direction?

"We are convinced that under our leadership Poland is going in the right direction, and we will defend this direction," Kaczynski said in a brief televised speech on Wednesday night.

"We will defend it in parliament, we will defend it before public opinion, and, if need be, we will defend it in elections," he said.

The Polish Peasants' Party complicated his efforts on Wednesday by abandoning talks on joining the government, saying footage aired on Tuesday night showed that Kaczynski's Law and Justice Party was being unfair and corrupt in negotiating Cabinet posts.

The footage, broadcast by private TVN television station, showed a chief aide to the prime minister apparently offering a high government position and financial support to a lawmaker from former coalition partner Self-Defense in exchange for her joining Law and Justice.

provocation

Leaders of Law and Justice called the footage "serious political provocation."

The aide, Adam Lipinski, said the taped exchange was part of normal political negotiation.

Kaczynski agreed, saying that "calling such negotiations corruption is a lie, a hypocrisy."

"People that say that want to bring about a political crisis in Poland," he said.

The footage showed Lipinski asking Self-Defense's Renata Beger what she expected in return for crossing over to Law and Justice, and saying "the secretary of state post in the Agriculture Ministith Self-Defense and the small, right-wing League of Polish Families.

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Poland Faces Labor Shortage as Its Proverbial Plumbers Go West

Edward Suchan, the president of a construction company in Krakow, Poland, can't find enough bricklayers, carpenters and electricians to hire. So he has turned to the local jail, hiring 10 ex-convicts and awaiting the release of 20 more.

``Workers have vanished into thin air,'' Suchan said in an interview. ``More people have left this country than during martial law. We have to turn down contracts because we can barely meet deadlines.''

In Western Europe, the ``Polish plumber'' is a catchphrase for the flood of workers who've migrated since the expansion of the European Union in 2004, sparking resentment from London to Berlin and feeding a growing conviction the newcomers are taking jobs from natives. Less reported is what the migration is doing to the economies those workers left behind.

A World Bank report issued yesterday concluded that the impact is greater on nations losing craftsmen and laborers.

``Even though post-accession labor flows have been absorbed with little evidence of any negative impact on the receiving economies, they did have a significant impact on the sending countries'' the bank said in its quarterly report on the eight eastern states that joined the EU in 2004. ``Massive outflows of workers may lead to labor shortages, signs of which are already visible in the Baltic States and Poland.''

Latvia and Lithuania

Latvia, the EU's poorest nation per capita, says as many as 120,000 people, or 10 percent of the labor force, work abroad. Lithuania's Statistics Department says about 126,000 people emigrated between 2001 and 2005, accounting for 7.9 percent of the workforce.

In Poland, the Labor Ministry estimates more than 600,000 Poles have left. Krystyna Iglicka, an economist at the Warsaw- based Public Affairs Institute, says the real figure may be as high as 1.2 million. Some 228,000 long-term Polish workers are registered with the U.K. Home Office; Ireland has 105,000. Another 330,000 Poles are holding temporary seasonal jobs in Germany.

That number is likely to grow. Warsaw researcher PBS DGA in a telephone survey this month found half of Poles under 24 years of age expect to move away within the next two years.

For companies like Suchan's PBP Chemobudowa-Krakow SA, that means delays in projects and loss of revenue. The National Statistical Office says 45 percent of domestic builders are short of workers, almost triple last year's figure.

Closing Wards

Forty-three percent of domestic companies complain that the shortage of qualified workers is affecting their business, according to Lewiatan, the association for private employers. The Polish Health Ministry estimates about 5 percent of doctors have emigrated since EU membership, forcing some hospitals to ditch services and close down wards.

The EU's 2004 expansion, which created a single market of 450 million people and opened doors long denied to the citizens of former communist regimes, also aimed to bring down barriers to cross-border investment. In Poland's case, the government says that foreign companies are creating about 51,000 new jobs annually -- far fewer than those being lost to emigration. And foreign companies may run up against the same issues domestic employers are already dealing with.

Wroclaw, the fifth-largest Polish city, boasted about the country's annual economic growth rate of 5 percent and its educated and cheap labor force to lure foreign companies such as LG.Philips LCD Co., which will spend $550 million in the area by 2011.

`All for Nothing'

These employers are still waiting for enough local people to sign up for factory work, said Mayor Rafal Dutkiewicz.

``I promised 100,000 new jobs four years ago and will keep my word,'' said Rafal Dutkiewicz. ``But it seems all for nothing because these big foreign companies we invited, after hiring 40,000 local workers, now can't find enough hands.''

To counter the trend, the city of 670,000 began a campaign in the U.K. and Ireland, with billboards proclaiming, ``Come back Poles, we have work for you, Wroclaw loves you.''

The problem is the wage differential that exists even in foreign-owned Polish factories, said Ireneusz Jablonski, an analyst at the Adam Smith Center, a research group in Warsaw.

In Poland, the average monthly wage is $850, while in neighboring Germany, the average is more than $4,000.

``The government successfully tempted foreign investors with tax exemptions and low labor costs,'' said Jablonski. ``Poles, though, prefer emigration rather than humiliating salaries that are not enough to keep up even a basic standard of living.''

The central bank reported in August that 16.5 percent of domestic companies plan to raise wages in the third quarter, while the European Commission said on Sept. 6 that the shortage of employers in some industries will boost wages and spark inflation.

``Companies must pay more if they don't want to lose employees,'' said Deputy Labor Minister Boguslaw Socha. ``Otherwise, we won't stop that exodus.''

Link

Poland Faces Labor Shortage as Its Proverbial Plumbers Go West

Edward Suchan, the president of a construction company in Krakow, Poland, can't find enough bricklayers, carpenters and electricians to hire. So he has turned to the local jail, hiring 10 ex-convicts and awaiting the release of 20 more.

``Workers have vanished into thin air,'' Suchan said in an interview. ``More people have left this country than during martial law. We have to turn down contracts because we can barely meet deadlines.''

In Western Europe, the ``Polish plumber'' is a catchphrase for the flood of workers who've migrated since the expansion of the European Union in 2004, sparking resentment from London to Berlin and feeding a growing conviction the newcomers are taking jobs from natives. Less reported is what the migration is doing to the economies those workers left behind.

A World Bank report issued yesterday concluded that the impact is greater on nations losing craftsmen and laborers.

``Even though post-accession labor flows have been absorbed with little evidence of any negative impact on the receiving economies, they did have a significant impact on the sending countries'' the bank said in its quarterly report on the eight eastern states that joined the EU in 2004. ``Massive outflows of workers may lead to labor shortages, signs of which are already visible in the Baltic States and Poland.''

Latvia and Lithuania

Latvia, the EU's poorest nation per capita, says as many as 120,000 people, or 10 percent of the labor force, work abroad. Lithuania's Statistics Department says about 126,000 people emigrated between 2001 and 2005, accounting for 7.9 percent of the workforce.

In Poland, the Labor Ministry estimates more than 600,000 Poles have left. Krystyna Iglicka, an economist at the Warsaw- based Public Affairs Institute, says the real figure may be as high as 1.2 million. Some 228,000 long-term Polish workers are registered with the U.K. Home Office; Ireland has 105,000. Another 330,000 Poles are holding temporary seasonal jobs in Germany.

That number is likely to grow. Warsaw researcher PBS DGA in a telephone survey this month found half of Poles under 24 years of age expect to move away within the next two years.

For companies like Suchan's PBP Chemobudowa-Krakow SA, that means delays in projects and loss of revenue. The National Statistical Office says 45 percent of domestic builders are short of workers, almost triple last year's figure.

Closing Wards

Forty-three percent of domestic companies complain that the shortage of qualified workers is affecting their business, according to Lewiatan, the association for private employers. The Polish Health Ministry estimates about 5 percent of doctors have emigrated since EU membership, forcing some hospitals to ditch services and close down wards.

The EU's 2004 expansion, which created a single market of 450 million people and opened doors long denied to the citizens of former communist regimes, also aimed to bring down barriers to cross-border investment. In Poland's case, the government says that foreign companies are creating about 51,000 new jobs annually -- far fewer than those being lost to emigration. And foreign companies may run up against the same issues domestic employers are already dealing with.

Wroclaw, the fifth-largest Polish city, boasted about the country's annual economic growth rate of 5 percent and its educated and cheap labor force to lure foreign companies such as LG.Philips LCD Co., which will spend $550 million in the area by 2011.

`All for Nothing'

These employers are still waiting for enough local people to sign up for factory work, said Mayor Rafal Dutkiewicz.

``I promised 100,000 new jobs four years ago and will keep my word,'' said Rafal Dutkiewicz. ``But it seems all for nothing because these big foreign companies we invited, after hiring 40,000 local workers, now can't find enough hands.''

To counter the trend, the city of 670,000 began a campaign in the U.K. and Ireland, with billboards proclaiming, ``Come back Poles, we have work for you, Wroclaw loves you.''

The problem is the wage differential that exists even in foreign-owned Polish factories, said Ireneusz Jablonski, an analyst at the Adam Smith Center, a research group in Warsaw.

In Poland, the average monthly wage is $850, while in neighboring Germany, the average is more than $4,000.

``The government successfully tempted foreign investors with tax exemptions and low labor costs,'' said Jablonski. ``Poles, though, prefer emigration rather than humiliating salaries that are not enough to keep up even a basic standard of living.''

The central bank reported in August that 16.5 percent of domestic companies plan to raise wages in the third quarter, while the European Commission said on Sept. 6 that the shortage of employers in some industries will boost wages and spark inflation.

``Companies must pay more if they don't want to lose employees,'' said Deputy Labor Minister Boguslaw Socha. ``Otherwise, we won't stop that exodus.''

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Investors do not panic over the „tapes of truth” scandal

Politicians are more excited about the “tapes of truth” scandal than investors. The reaction of the markets was weak. But politics are not supporting the markets.



A political storm broke out when TVN television broadcasted the conversations of Renata Beger, the MP of Samoobrona populist party with ministers Adam Lipinski and Wojciech Mojzesowicz. The films recorded with a hidden camera show the way the politicians of PiS ruling party were trying to attract Samoobrona MPs to join their party. Opposition parties say this is political corruption.



The financial market reacted with a slight depreciation of the zloty and bonds.

“The zloty opened lower. There is no panic however. Investors refrained from decisions rather. The risk of elections before the expire of the Parliament’s term is growing and we all are getting used to it. However, the moods would be better hadn’t it been for the politics”, Marcin Bilbin, Pekao analyst commented.

Maciej Grabski from the Gdansk Institute for Market Economics believes that investors are waiting for facts like the budget.



Politicians reacted with much more panic. They started reacting late at night and continued all day long with comments, statements and briefings. Marek Kuchcinski, PiS head, said that the whole affair was a “great political provocation” aimed to stop the changes being implemented by the government. Krzysztof Putra, another PiS MP said that calling the affair a political corruption is funny and that journalists are misleading the public opinion.

Meanwhile, the opposition increased the chances to take the power out of PiS party. SLD leftist party submitted a file to dissolve the Parliament before the expiry of its term (PO is said to have submitted such a file before) and wanted Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski to stand in front of the Tribunal of State. At 8.00 p.m. Prime Minister in his statement said that there was no big problem and suggested that PiS would not give up easily.

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PiS and PO Pull Out Their Guns

The ruling camp and leading opposition party are clashing anew. PM Jaroslaw Kaczynski demanded that PO top figure Jan Rokita retired from politics due to his alleged involvement in the surveillance of right-wing parties in the early 1990's. In response, PO leader Donald Tusk requested President Lech Kaczynski to dismiss his brother from office.

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PM Kaczyński: 'opposition leads Poland into a political crisis'

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Prime minister Jarosław Kaczyński has accused the opposition of seeking to lead the country into a political crisis. In an address to the nation, 24 hours after his close aide was shown on a secret video discussing with an opposition MP what she wanted in return for switching sides, Mr Kaczynski rejected the accusations of corruption. He said his party, the conservative Law and Justice, is in talks about support for the government, and one of those talks was used as a provocation’. He added that the changes which his party wants to introduce bother those ‘who form informal and formal grey networks and who, up to now, have acted outside any legal and constitutional order’. The prime minister stressed his government would not step down.

The Speaker of Parliament has rejected the opposition’s call for an extraordinary session of the House to discuss the current crisis. After a meeting of parliamentary leaders, he announced that the next session will be held as scheduled, that is on October 10. A motion by the liberal Civic Platform for Parliament to dissolve itself will be put to a vote, but it is unlikely to be supported by Law and Justice.

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Bush admits to secret CIA prisons

GEORGE BUSH admitted yesterday for the first time that terror suspects had been held in secret CIA prisons outside US borders, saying that they were now being transferred to Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba, where he hoped that they would be tried for war crimes.

The US president, who is using a series of speeches to re-focus the attention of voters on national security before the mid-term elections in November, was cheered by his White House audience when he said that his proposal would mean that the men who “orchestrated the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, can face justice”.

This provided him with cover for a significant retreat by his Administration yesterday over the treatment of detainees from the War on Terror. They have previously been deemed “illegal enemy combatants” but will now be given full rights under Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

Just hours before Mr Bush’s speech the Pentagon announced a complete overhaul of its policy for inmates at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, to set a “single standard of humane treatment”.

The new rules, which have been drawn up in response to the scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, specifically outlaw eight interrogation techniques that critics say amount to torture and have done much damage to the global reputation of America.

These are: forced nudity and sexual acts; beatings and electric shocks; extreme cold or heat distress; “waterboarding” — a simulated drowning technique allegedly used by the CIA; mock executions; withholding food and water; the use of dogs; and masking people in hoods and covering their eyes with duct tape.

The European Parliament has attacked clandestine “rendition” flights across Europe, which included stops at Prestwick airport in Glasgow, to take terror suspects to secret CIA prisons where they could face torture.

Mr Bush yesterday insisted that the US “does not torture — it’s against our laws, and it’s against our values”. But he acknowledged that a “small number” of detainees had been kept in CIA custody in secret locations around the world.

The President said that these included people responsible for the bombing of the naval ship USS Cole in 2000 in Yemen and the 1998 attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in addition to the 9/11 attacks.

“The most important source of information on where the terrorists are hiding and what they are planning is the terrorists themselves,” he said. “It has been necessary to move these individuals to an environment where they can be held in secret, questioned by experts and, when appropriate, prosecuted for terrorist acts.”

The CIA programme had interrogated suspected terrorists such as as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, believed to be the mastermind behind 9/11, Ramzi Binalshibh, a would-be hijacker; and Riduan Isamuddin, who was behind a string of deadly bomb attacks in Indonesia until his arrest in Thailand in 2003.

Mr Bush said that the questioning of these detainees had provided critical intelligence information about terrorist activities that enabled officials to prevent attacks not only in the United States but also Europe, including a plot to fly hijacked aircraft into the Canary Wharf towers in London.

He said that 14 key terrorist leaders had been transferred the prison at the US Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, where they will be afforded legal protections consistent with the Geneva Conventions and “treated with the humanity that they denied others”.

Although the President is still refusing to grant the wish of, among others, the British Government, for the closure of the prison camp at the US Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, his decision to grant inmates protection under the Geneva Conventions represents a dramatic reversal of his administration’s former policy.

He also outlined fresh plans for military commissions to try suspected terrorists. The Supreme Court struck down a previous proposal in June on the ground that it would violate US and international law.

Senior Republican senators, including John McCain and John Warner, are reported to be still at odds with the Administration over the extent to which defendants should be allowed to know the evidence against them.

They are said to believe that restricting access to such information is unjust and would set a dangerous precedent for captured US military personnel. But a White House spokesman insisted yesterday that the new proposal would “pass muster with the Supreme Court”.

Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secrteary who was yesterday in hospital recovering from shoulder surgery, is regarded as the chief author of bitterly contested methods of detaining, interrogating and prosecuting suspected terrorists.

He has also become a symbol of successive setbacks in the War on Terror. A growing number of Republicans are beginning to attack Mr Rumsfeld as a proxy for criticising Mr Bush and the Iraq war.

Chris Shays, a Republican Congressman from Connecticut, said: “I simply don’t think he has measured up on running the war in Iraq.”

The Democrats tried to push no-confidence motions against the Defence Secretary on to the floor of both Houses of Congress as a way of embarrassing their Republican opponents in the mid-term elections.

But Republicans stood by Mr Rumsfeld, with John Boehner, the House Majority leader, defending him with a backhanded compliment as a man “who knows where bodies are buried in the Pentagon”.

HIDDEN AGENDA

Human rights groups allege that CIA “black sites” — secret prisons — exist in Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Pakistan, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Poland and Romania.
Detainees are moved to these sites through “extraordinary renditions”.
In December a Swiss senator reported to the Council of Europe that 14 European countries, including Britain, have colluded with the CIA’s renditions: allowing abductions from their soil or acting as stop-off points for flights on the way to prisons.
The US claims that detainees in these prisons are not tortured. However, in 2002 Jay Bybee, the Assistant US Attorney-General, suggested that for pain to be defined as torture it should be severe enough potentially to result in organ failure or death.
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba was set up in 2002 for al-Qaeda and Taleban operatives. It was initially run outside of the Geneva Convention, but in June of this year that position was ruled unlawful by the US Supreme Court. Guantanamo Bay holds about 450 detainees.

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Spyra fined for refusal to testify in Unipetrol case

Prague, Sept 5 (CTK) - The anti-corruption police have fined Polish lobbyist Jacek Spyra CZK 45,000 for refusing to testify in the Unipetrol corruption scandal, Spyra told CTK Tuesday.

"I will file a complaint against the fine," he said, adding that there was no political interest in solving the case justly and he thus refused to give any evidence due to the bullying which he faced in connection with the case.

Zdenek Dolezel, a former head of the Government Office at the time of the former Social Democrat (CSSD) cabinets, has been charged with fraud in the case. He is suspected of asking for a CZK 5 million bribe at a meeting with Spyra and faces up to 12 years in prison if found guilty.

"Since Mr Dolezel has been charged I have being subjected to bullying. Someone is interested in complicating my life," Spyra said.

Spyra, the crown witness and a participant in the meeting, said that he did not want to have anything to do with the case.

Anti-corruption police spokeswoman Alena Vokrackova confirmed that Spyra turned up for the questioning but refused to testify.

Spyra said he did not want to give evidence because he firmly believed that he was being harassed in connection with the case, particularly by the border police while travelling from Poland to the Czech Republic and back.

In 2004 the government of Stanislav Gross (CSSD) sold 63 percent of Unipetrol shares for CZK 13.05 billion to the Polish concern PKN Orlen. Speculation then surfaced that the sale was accompanied by corruption.

The scandal was broke by a TV Nova report showing a meeting, capture on hidden camera, between Spyra and Dolezel, at which Dolezel asked for a CZK 5 million bribe.

At the meeting, Dolezel and Spyra talked about politicians' corruption and Unipetrol privatisation.

Spyra allegedly said at the meeting that Gross, former Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek (CSSD), as well as former Christian Democrat chairman Miroslav Kalousek and former Finance Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (CSSD) had received a bribe from businessman Andrej Babis, owner of the Agrofert agrochemical company.

Spyra allegedly tried to question Unipetrol privatisation or interfere with it to gain advantages for the Seta consortium.

(USD1=21.942 Czech crowns)

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