Flying Outside The Law

At the risk of turning this blog into a legal journal, here is another interesting case currently developing in the Spanish judicial system. I have written before about the use made by the CIA of the airport at Palma de Mallorca, for their “extraordinary rendition” flights transporting prisoners around the world. Whilst the Spanish government has denied all knowledge of the flights, and seems very keen not to get involved in the issue, some private citizens took the initiative and a case has been opened involving the possible use of torture and illegal detention related to the use of Spanish airports for these flights.

First to declare the other day was Khaled El Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese origin. El Masri was kidnapped in Macedonia in 2004, and then transported to Kabul in a plane that is said to have stopped over in Mallorca. He endured five months of illegal detention before being released somewhere near the frontiers of Serbia, Macedonia and Albania. El Masri declared the other day that he was not physically tortured, but that he was tied up at times and intimidated with firearms. It goes without saying that no formal accusation was ever made against him, and the nature of his release suggests an attempt by his captors to cover their trail. I will be posting on any significant developments in the case.

Pedro's Public Pool

We are still in August so I can keep things going here with a true silly season story. The protagonist of today’s tale has already made appearances in this blog before, it is none other than Pedro J Ramirez, director of the newspaper El Mundo. This time we are not interested in some of the imaginative stories his newspaper has been printing about the Madrid train bombings, of which we can be sure there will soon be fresh instalments. No, today the focus is on the swimming pool at his house in Mallorca.

This has been a long running saga, because the pool in his house in Mallorca was constructed on land that is public domain, and in recent months there have been a series of protests demanding that public access be restored. Earlier this year the government was quite generous with Pedro, offering him a deal which effectively would leave his precious pool in peace as access would be offered outside the summer months to local schools who would probably not take advantage of the offer anyway. Pedro Jota has of course not been shy about using his own newspaper to attack those who have led protests on the issue.

This weekend, however, the pool really hit the headlines as there were two simultaneous demonstrations on the island over the issue, one in favour of public access, the other supporting poor Pedro against the “radical separatists” who would deprive him of his simple pleasures. Most interesting has been the revelation that the Partido Popular (the PP) shipped in hundreds of members of its youth wing from the Spanish mainland to participate in the defence of Pedro’s Pool (the PP2). These participants in what El Mundo flatteringly described as a “human tidal wave” of protest (promote that journalist!) helped to boost the numbers on the pro-Pedro side to 800 according to the Guardia Civil, and over 2000 according to the organisers. Whether they all got to use the pool as part of the deal has not been made clear, but it does leave the supposed independence of El Mundo looking even shakier than it already was.

Funny how the defence of “liberty” so often seems to involve defending the privileges of the powerful – I would hate to think that any of the ever increasing numbers of jellyfish in the Mediterranean could breach the barriers and make it as far as the pool.

Air CIA Takes You There

Competition in the low cost flight industry is really hotting up since the CIA entered the business. It seems that Palma de Mallorca in Spain has now become one of their major hubs – from here they are offering free no-frills flights direct to a variety of attractive destinations, including Guantanamo, Baghdad and Bagram in Afghanistan. For those with family connections, there are optional stopovers in Amman, Tripoli, Cairo or Damascus. Not only are the flights free, but in some cases they might travel with only a single passenger, helpfully provided with a complementary travel kit consisting of orange jumpsuit, blindfold and handcuffs. In many cases, the passenger(s) can be picked up from relatively remote locations – and in cases where it seems they have been delivered to the wrong destination, Air CIA guarantees that they will be returned to a destination of at least equal remoteness (Khalid al-Masri). Accommodation on arrival is almost certainly included in the package, although as you would expect with such a low cost service it can be fairly basic. Although they are apparently still awaiting official approval from the Spanish government for these flights, it appears that this has not presented any obstacle for running the service since it began in 2001.