Update Guantanamo rendition-cocaine plane connection

Update courtesy of Daniel Hopsicker's www.madcowprod.com who was original investigator and reporter of the George Herbert Walker Bush,Bill Clinton and Asa Hutchinson era Mena,Arkansas-Iran-Contra cocaine imports with his legally censored book,'Barry and the Boys'.Now as you can see below he is being referenced by established Mexican journalists and Mexicans who believe they're being discriminated
against in their shady dealings drug and money laundering while U.S.
CIA,Republican Party and even possibly Homeland Security connected
individuals get off scott free with all the coke they can traffic and
money they can steal.And now - as not only Hopsicker points out but
now finally AFP as well as points out - ,'Mexico drug plane used for
US 'rendition' flights: report 'Anyway all thought all this material with links speaks for itself and was a valid update to my earlier post
here on the subject.
AFP further states as you will see below,'The(Guantanamo rendition)
plane was carrying Colombian drugs for the fugitive leader of Mexico's
Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, when it crash-landed in the
Yucatan peninsula on September 24, El Universal reported.

The daily said it had obtained documents from the United States and
the European Parliament which "show that that plane flew several times
to Guantanamo, Cuba, presumably to transfer terrorism suspects."

It said the European Parliament was investigating the private Grumman
Gulfstream II, registered by the European Organization for the Safety
of Air Navigation, for suspected use in CIA "rendition" flights in
which prisoners are covertly transferred to a third country or US-run
detention centers.':


www.madcowprod.com/09102008.html

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
by Daniel Hopsicker

EU Officials: Investigate CIA Plane Used
in Renditions Caught with 4 Tons of Cocaine

How did 100 drug planes escape U.S. scrutiny?



The CIA Drug Plane Scandal grew exponentially last week when European
Union officials broke an official 40-year-long silence on the
previously-taboo subject of the CIA's worldwide involvement in drug
trafficking.

Last week Mexico City newspaper El Universal reported that The
European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation has begun an
investigation one of the planes, the cocaine-laden Gulfstream II
business jet (N987SA), for suspected use in CIA "rendition" flights in
which prisoners are covertly transferred to a third country or US-run
detention centers.

The plane crash-landed after running out of fuel in the jungle near
the small town of Tixkokob, 40 miles outside the Yucatan capital of
Merida on September 24th of last year.

The downed aircraft's ties had already been conclusively demonstrated
months ago in investigative reporting by this reporter, as well as by
Bill Conroy of NarcoNews, who first broke news of the Gulfstream II
jet's longstanding use by the CIA and the DEA in operations in
Colombia......

"Round up the usual suspects"
The owners of both planes also owned all three companies involved in a
massive $300 million financial scandal called STOCKGATE, which was
engineered by shadowy Saudi arms merchant and alleged CIA "fixer"
Adnan Khashoggi, currently a fugitive from justice in the case.

The men involved include Stephan Adams and Michael Farkas, who owned
two of three companies used in the hugely successful fraud, which
stole over $300 million from unwary stockholders.

Miami attorney Michael Farkas was the founder of Skyway Aircraft,
which owned the DC9. Farkas is also the American representative of an
Israeli political party representing settlers on the West Bank,
Manhigut Yehudit.

Stephen Adams, a secretive Midwestern media baron and Republican
fund-raiser who owned the Gulfstream in 1999 and 2000, when he was
also personally buying over $1 million in billboard advertising in
support of George W. Bush's 2000 Presidential campaign.

Together with Farkas, Adams owned Holiday RV Superstores, Inc., one of
the companies involved in STOCKGATE. (Farkas controlled a second all
by himself.)

And Adnan Khashoggi, who controlled the third corporation used in the
scheme, Genesis Intermedia, and the mastermind of the financial fraud,
is . Adjectives applied before Khashoggi's name, even in the
mainstream press, usually include "Saudi billionaire," "arms merchant"
and "CIA fixer."

A $300 Million heist with next to no news coverage
In an irony we will not dwell on here, Genesis Intermedia was
incorporated by the longtime lawyer for Barry Seal's drug trafficking
organization.

A lawsuit filed by this individual kept our book "Barry & the boys,"
from reaching bookstores for more than five years.

Ramy El-Batrawi, one of Khashoggi's lieutenants, ran Genesis
Intermedia. El-Batrawi owned a charter airline which testimony during
the Iran Contra Scandal revealed was a CIA subsidiary. His planes flew
TOW missiles to Iran for Oliver North, supposedly to provide funds for
the contras, although most of the money was never recovered or
accounted for.

El-Batrawi also owned the sister ship to the busted DC9(N120NE).

In Khashoggi et al's most recant caper, the looting led to the biggest
brokerage failure in American history.

In a case providing a clear example of what has come to be called
"Wall Street Socialism," American taxpayers were left to pick up much
of the bill, while nominally Republican figures with pig snouts
snuffling through the public trough occasionally come up for air to
rail against infringements on free enterprise.

Not surprisingly, considering the shameful state of American
journalism, the massive fraud received surprisingly little press
coverage. But, one has to wonder:

Would a $300 million bank heist receive a similar cold shoulder?

An unfair advantage

Officials in Central and South American countries were used to seeing
both planes flying in and out on missions which they assumed were for
the American Government

The Gulfstream was well-known in Colombia for flying for the CIA and
DEA. The DC9 airliner from SkyWay was painted to impersonate a plane
from U.S. Homeland Security.

It may even, when and if the truth finally comes out, be shown to have
been one.

Thus, both of the busted American planes had a major advantage for
drug trafficking not available to the ordinary slob on the street.

The question is: Why should anyone care? The answer is simple...

Every time the DEA, or the U.S. Coast Guard trumpets their latest
multi-ton interdiction of cocaine (like one recently of a ship they
busted with 12 tons of cocaine) the bust is of interest and concern to
no one but other drug traffickers.

They haven't taken 12 tons of cocaine off the street. They've just
created an additional marketing opportunity for somebody else's 12
tons of cocaine.

Who might that somebody else be?

Imagination runs riot.







uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080903/twl-mexico-us-crime-drugs-2802f3e.html

afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j6QonBKKMo2gw1e3ql-xUcQEZbVg

Mexico drug plane used for US 'rendition' flights: report
AFP - Thursday, September 4 09:40 pmMEXICO CITY (AFP) - A private jet
that crash-landed almost one year ago in eastern Mexico carrying 3.3
tons of cocaine had previously been used for CIA "rendition" flights,
a newspaper report said here Thursday, citing documents from the
United States and the European Parliament.

(Advertisement)
The plane was carrying Colombian drugs for the fugitive leader of
Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, when it crash-landed
in the Yucatan peninsula on September 24, El Universal reported.

The daily said it had obtained documents from the United States and
the European Parliament which "show that that plane flew several times
to Guantanamo, Cuba, presumably to transfer terrorism suspects."

It said the European Parliament was investigating the private Grumman
Gulfstream II, registered by the European Organization for the Safety
of Air Navigation, for suspected use in CIA "rendition" flights in
which prisoners are covertly transferred to a third country or US-run
detention centers.

It also said the US Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) logbook
registered that the plane had traveled between US territory and the US
military base in Guantanamo.

It said the FAA registered its last owner as Clyde O'Connor in Pompano
Beach, Florida.

Extraordinary rendition has been harshly criticized since it began in
the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

...........................
www.borderfirereport.net/michael-webster/new-revelations-on-cia-drug-planes.html

New revelations on CIA drug planes
Sunday, 07 September 2008
Michael Webster: Investigative reporter
This is about the strange story of the Gulfstream II jet filled with
3.7 tons of cocaine that crashed in the Yucatan. The Laguna Journal
has learned that the EU through the European Parliament is
investigating the circumstances surrounding the planes used by the
"CIA for alleged drug shipments and extraordinary rendition" flights.

The largest and most respected Mexico City newspaper El Universal
reports that it has obtained documents from the United States and the
European Parliament which "show that the plane flew several times to
Guantanamo, Cuba, presumably to transfer terrorism suspects." It said
the European Parliament was investigating the private Grumman
Gulfstream II, registered by the European Organization for the Safety
of Air Navigation, for suspected use in CIA "drug transport and
rendition" flights in which prisoners are covertly transferred to a
third country or US-run detention centers outside of the USA.
The jet that crashed near Mérida, Yucatán in September, 2007 with
almost 4 tons of cocaine belonging to narco trafficker Joaquín "El
Chapo" Guzmán briefly headed the news today, then mysteriously
disappeared. Not a word has been printed since. Many believe that an
American agency caused the story to be squashed. The story connected
prior CIA use of the plane for clandestine flights from South and
Central America, Europe and Cuba and was accompanied by a top secret
detailed map of those flights.

As reported in the Laguna Journal last year the headline read U.S. CIA
and Homeland planes busted for running drugs. Both planes were
believed to have been carrying Colombian drugs for Guzman. The article
went on to say in the broadening scandal kicked off by two CIA and
Dept of Homeland Security-linked airplanes that were also busted in
Mexico with multi-ton loads of cocaine.

According to the MadCowMorningNews the U.S. corruption investigation
turned up a central figure in that probe and it turns out to be
Guyanese pilot Michael Francis Brassington, a name familiar to readers
who have followed the unfolding and still largely untold story of the
activities and associates of the terrorist hijackers in Florida.

Michael Brassington was the co-pilot on a drug running Lear jet
(N351WB) caught by DEA agents at Orlando Executive Airport in July of
2000 carrying 43 pounds of heroin.

The Guyanese pilot Brassington is implicated by a former Customs agent
as part of a ring of corrupt Customs officials being investigated by
the Dept. of Homeland Security. Mr. Brassington, whose name is a
footnote in the 9/11 investigation, was named in a procurement scandal
over the disputed purchase by the Guyana Defense Forces of two antique
30-year old helicopters from a 'dummy' company in Delaware that sounds
suspiciously like a front for the CIA, the ironically-named "Global X
Group".
9/11 investigation

While researching pilot Brassington's involvement in the Guyana
scandal, they were astonished to discover that Brassington's father
(also named Michael Brassington) has close business ties with one of
the most notorious oligarchs in the Russian Mob, Oleg Deripaska, the
"last man standing" in the brutal Aluminum Wars in Russia during the
1990's for control of that strategic resource.

This information is important in order to gain a full understanding of
the 9/11 attack. Brassington's name surfaced in connection with 9/11
because he had been the co-pilot on the drug-running Lear jet (N351WB)
owned by Wallace J. Hilliard. Hilliard also—and not
coincidentally—owned the Venice FL flight school where Mohamed Atta
and Marwan Al-Shehhi were at the time learning to fly.

One of the other jets with the tail number N987SA records show that it
had changed hands twice over time. Title indicated the plane had been
owned by the U.S. Government but how it ended up in the hands of
suspected drug traffickers remains a mystery.

The Mexican attorney general's office said the blue and white
Gulfstream II that crashed in a remote jungle area on the Yucatán
Peninsula said authorities seized 132 bags of cocaine weighing almost
four tons.

Mad Cow Morning News reporter visited the believed owners of the plane
at the time, "Donna Blue Aircraft Inc" of Coconut Beach FL., and
discovered that it's an "empty office suite with a blank sign out
front."

There was no sign of Donna Blue Aircraft, Inc. , at the address listed
at the Florida Dept. of Corporations, at 4811 Lyons Technology Parkway
#8 in Coconut Beach FL. The new owners of the corporation recently
registered in South Florida were two Brazilians. However, there were,
oddly enough, a half-dozen unmarked police cars parked directly in
front of the empty suite.

The aircraft was registered just ten days before they bought the
plane. So is this just a Front Company? Investigative journalist
Daniel Hopsicker said, "It's a phony front company."

Phone calls to Butters Development, the industrial park's leasing
agent, went unreturned.

According to other news reports, the plane was once owned by
ultra-rich Bush supporter Stephen Adams. (In July, the Federal
Election Commission filed suit against Adams on charges that he
"failed to report and include proper disclaimers on $1,000,000 in
billboard ads during the 2004 Presidential race.")

Not only that, but Mad Cow alleges that Adam's business partner owned
the other American drug plane that was found in Mexico with 5.5 tons
of cocaine in 2006.

Recently-released FAA records from the Gulfstream II business jet that
went down in Mexico with four tons of cocaine reveal that before it
was "parked" in the name of a New York real estate developer with ties
to the Russian Mob, the plane was owned by a secretive Midwestern
media baron and Republican fund-raiser, who had a business partner
who, incredibly, owned the other American drug plane, the DC9,
recently busted in Mexico.

Adams was in business with Miami attorney Michael Farkas, who founded
SkyWay Aircraft, which owned the DC9 busted in Mexico with 5.5 tons of
cocaine aboard.

Moreover at the same time the Bush Ranger extraordinaire Stephen Adams
owned the Gulfstream (N987SA) in 1999 and 2000, he was personally
buying over $1 million of billboard ads for George W. Bush for his
2000 Presidential election bid.

Mad Cow visited Donna Blue's offices and took photos of what appears
to be a sham company. Here's a photo of some unmarked police cars
parked in front Donna Blue Aircraft's empty suite:

Last October, the Austin American Statesman reported the plane had
previously flown to Guantanamo Bay.

Here's a Chicago Public Radio story from October 31, 2007 about the
crashed CIA drug plane.

The crashed drug plane also has been linked to a Bush fundraiser.

Mad Cow Morning news has been covering stories about the CIA and drug
smuggling. The plane was owned by Donna Blue Aircraft, Inc.

Is this a video of the plane? (from this German website )

(c) Michael Webster - All Rights Reserved

America's leading authority on Venture Capital/Equity Funding. A
trustee on some of the nations largest trade Union funds. A noted
Author, Lecturer, Educator, Emergency Manager, Counter-Terrorist, War
on Drugs and War on Terrorist Specialist, Business Consultant,
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Union Business Agent, General Organizer, Union Rank and File Member
Grievances Representative, NLRB Union Representative, Union Contract
Negotiator, Workers Compensation Appeals Board Hearing Representative.
Investigative Reporter for print, electronic and on-line News
Agencies.

We Invite You To Visit Michael Webster's Website:

E-Mail: mvwsr (at) aol.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam
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Michael Webster Bio Information and archives

............................

www.madcowprod.com/08272008.html
AUG 25 2008
by Daniel Hopsicker



The exclusive "Cocaine One" series of investigative reports by this
reporter appearing on this website for the past two years made the
news, finally... not in the U.S., but in Mexico City, where it was
cited by a principal in the drug trafficking scandal in newspaper
interviews to support his allegation of selective prosecution against
the DEA.

It is one of several recent new developments in the scandal, which
began two years ago with the capture in the Yucatan by the Mexican
military of two American-registered airplanes.

Both planes had taken off from St. Petersburg FL., flown to Colombia
and Venezuela, and then were busted when they stopped in the Yucatan
to refuel on the way back to Florida.

They were caught carrying an astonishing cumulative total of ten tons
of cocaine, as well as a still-undisclosed amount of heroin.

Total immunity as a perk of employment

Carlos Gutiérrez de Velasco is the paterfamilias of the influential
Veracruz-based family which owned the Casa de Cambio Puebla currency
exchange, accused of laundering enough drug money through U.S. banks
to buy as many as 100 American planes for use in drug-running.

In a recent interview with Mexico City's Reforma newspaper,
Gutierrez, who is also the father of a fugitive from prosecution in
the case, claimed his family is the victim of selective prosecution,
and alleged a cover-up of the involvement of influential Americans.

He called on Mexico's President Felipe Calderon to become personally
involved in forcing the DEA to explain why only Mexicans are being
tracked down and jailed.

The Americans who sold planes to the Sinaloa Cartel buyers enjoy
official immunity from prosecution, Gutierrez suggested, while people
like his fugitive son, José Antonio Gutiérrez, were being tracked down
and hung out to dry.

"Mexican authorities acted based only on information from the United
States," Gutierrez told Reforma, pointing to evidence unearthed by
this reporter's investigation, which revealed the high-level
Republican connections of the people selling planes to the Sinaloa
Cartel.

Ricardo Ravelo, a reporter for Mexico City' Proceso, has already
picked up our evidence of the interlocking ownership of the two
American drug-running airplanes ( a DC9 and a Gulfstream business jet)
busted in the Yucatan.

The owners of both planes were also in business together in a massive
($300 million) financial fraud, we have previously reported, along
with CIA fixer and Saudi arms merchant Adnan Khashoggi.

...............

209.85.165.104/search

Niega casa de cambio vínculos con el narco

Entrevista: Carlos Gutiérrez de Velasco Hoyos. Señalan socios que PGR
fundamenta su acusación en suposiciones que no han sido verificadas


(23 junio 2008).- REFORMA / Staff

La familia Gutiérrez de Velasco, fundadora y accionista de la
desaparecida Casa de Cambio Puebla, pidió al Presidente Felipe
Calderón revisar la acusación de lavado de dinero contra José Antonio
Gutiérrez de Velasco Hoyos, pues consideran que se integró con
suposiciones de la DEA y no con hechos concretos.

La PGR busca a José Antonio Gutiérrez, director del centro cambiario,
luego de que jueces federales ordenaran su aprehensión y detención
provisional con fines de extradición a Estados Unidos, por
presuntamente permitir transferencias del Cártel de Sinaloa para
comprar aviones en la Unión Americana.

Carlos Gutiérrez de Velasco Hoyos, hermano del evadido, manifestó en
entrevista con REFORMA que la persecución a su familiar se basa en un
expediente estadounidense donde no se tocan a ciudadanos de aquel país
y donde los datos no están del todo corroborados por México.

"Nunca hemos estado ligados al narcotráfico ni nada ilegal, los socios
de CCP son empresarios de Puebla y Veracruz que tienen negocios de
muchos años, gente muy arraigada en la zona y por eso en una carta que
enviamos a Calderón lo invitamos a que pida referencias a los
Gobernadores de ambos estados sobre quiénes son los socios de CCP.

"La autoridad mexicana ha actuado con información sólo de Estados
Unidos, tanto que el día que intervienen la matriz de la casa de
cambio en Puebla, los funcionarios de CCP ven a tres personas, güeros,
altos, fornidos, de traje, supervisando lo que hacía la PGR. Desde
nuestro punto de vista esos eran de la DEA.

"Mi hermano solamente es socio en un 2 por ciento...No impulsó el
narcotráfico, si le llaman el empresario de más alto nivel a un
director de una empresa que ganaba un promedio de 90 a 100 mil pesos y
que tiene ese porcentaje accionario, pues yo creo que es un mini
empresario", señaló........

Acercamientos en EU

Carlos Gutiérrez no es ni ha sido accionista de la CCP, pero habla en
nombre de su familia e incluso ventila que han recurrido a Los Pinos y
a la PGR para explicar la situación, y también se han acercado a las
autoridades de EU.

El entrevistado dice que pidieron a EU corroborar e incluir en el
proceso una información del periodista Daniel Hopsicker y su website
"Madcow", donde señala que los aviones del Cártel de Sinaloa eran de
propietarios de la Unión Americana.

"EU ofrece bajar los cargos si él se presenta, pero no sabemos primero
qué quiera decir esto de bajar los cargos, (dicen que) no se incluiría
en el juicio lo que dice 'Madcow', que los aviones tienen propietarios
en EU".

Según Gutiérrez, en el expediente donde solicitan la extradición de su
familiar, EU revela que los estadounidenses que vendieron los aviones
a los narcotraficantes, aceptaron saber que sus compradores eran
criminales. No obstante, los vendedores no fueron perseguidos.

Debido a este panorama, su hermano no piensa entregarse y en México
buscará un amparo.



Así lo dijo

"El día que intervienen la matriz de la casa de cambio en Puebla iban
tres personas, güeros, altos, fornidos, de traje, supervisando lo que
hacía la PGR. Desde nuestro punto de vista esos eran de la DEA".

Carlos Gutiérrez de Velasco Hoyos
Hermano de perseguido por la PGR

......................

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2936782.ece

From The Sunday TimesNovember 25, 2007

Flight logs reveal secret renditionStephen Grey
THE secret flight plans of American military planes have revealed for the first time how European countries helped send prisoners, including British citizens, to the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

Despite widespread criticism of alleged human rights abuses and torture at the US base in Cuba, a Sunday Times investigation has shown that at least five European countries gave the United States permission to fly nearly 700 terrorist suspects across their territory.

Three years ago, The Sunday Times published flight logs of CIA civilian jets in Europe, setting off a controversy over the whether countries across the continent have been secretly involved in America's rendition of terrorist suspects to countries that carry out torture.

The row is now set to be reignited. Inquiries by Ana Gomes, a Portuguese member of the European parliament, have uncovered not only more CIA flight logs but also more sensitive military flight plans, which until now have remained a closely guarded secret.

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The logs show how most prisoners changed planes at a Turkish military airbase and flew across Greek, Italian and Portuguese airspace. Others reached Cuba after touching down in Spain, whose governing socialist party once expressed indignation at conditions in Guantanamo.

The flight logs show that three Britons — Shafiq Rasul, Jamal Udeen and Asif Iqbal — were flown across Europe to Cuba on January 14, 2002. Moazzam Begg, another Briton, was taken by the same route to Guantanamo on February 2, 2003; and Binyam Mohamed, a British resident whose release the British government is now trying to negotiate, arrived in Cuba after crossing Europe in a special flight in September 2004.

According to the flight plans, the first 23 prisoners to arrive at Guantanamo — including another British citizen, Feroz Abbasi, then 21, and an Australian, David Hicks — had arrived at the American naval base in Cuba after flying from the Moron airbase in Spain.

Abbasi has claimed in a statement that prisoners were abused within hours of arriving. "We were made to sit on our heels, one foot over the other, supported by one foot's toes alone, for hours. Some of us were old, weak, fatigued, and injured — they were the ones to drop first in the searing Caribbean heat."

Described by the Pentagon as the "worst of the worst" from Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the images of prisoners such as Abbasi dressed in orange jumpsuits, their heads shaved and shackled by their wrists and ankles, shocked the world. Within a day, Donald Rumsfeld, then US defence secretary, announced that the Geneva conventions would not apply to what were now called "enemy combatants".

Last week, Europe's leading watchdog on human rights alleged that European countries had breached the international convention against torture by giving the US secret permission to use its airspace.

Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights, said: "What happened at Guantanamo was torture and it is illegal to provide facilities or anything to make this torture possible. Under the law, European governments should have intervened and should not have given permission to let these flights happen."

Gomes added: "It's clear to me that Guantanamo could not have been created without the involvement of European countries."

Methods used at Guantanamo Bay, condemned by Britain's Court of Appeal as a legal "black hole" and as a "monstrous failure of justice" by one law lord, have included the prolonged use of isolation, sleep deprivation, and use of stress positions. "These are methods that have been declared as unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights," Hammarberg said.

The military flight plans show that all key flights arriving in Guantanamo had come across European airspace either through Spain or the Incirlik airbase in southeastern Turkey. The Sunday Times compared the military flight plans against a database compiled by Reprieve, the British-based charity that represents Guantanamo prisoners, of when prisoners first weighed in at the camp.

The investigation, cross-checked against other Pentagon documents, shows for the first time which prisoner arrived on which flight at Guantanamo, and by what route. At least 170 other prisoners flew over Spanish territory, more than 700 crossed Portuguese space, and more than 680 were transshipped at Incirlik. Most flights also crossed Greek and Italian airspace, according to a source in European air traffic control.

On February 2 2003, for example, a US Air Force C-17 Globemaster plane took off from Incirlik with 27 prisoners on board for Cuba. The same day, prisoner number 558 weighed in at 136lb (62kg) at the camp. He can be named as Moazzam Begg, now 39, from Birmingham, who was released in January 2005, and has never been charged with a crime.

Interviewed by phone last week, Begg recalled: "Inside the plane there was a chain around our waist, and it connected to cuffs around my wrists, which were tied in the back, and to my ankles. We were seated but it was so painful not being able to speak, to hear, to breathe properly, to look, to turn left or right, to move your hands, stretch your legs, or anything." At the time flights were landing in Spain and crossing Spanish airspace, socialist leaders there were expressing "indignation" over conditions in Guantanamo. Now the socialists are in government after winning an election in March 2004 just after the Madrid train bombings and they are being asked to defend Spain's continued collaboration with American operations. Under international law, government and military planes can cross another country's territory only with diplomatic permission.

In a statement to the European parliament on the visits of CIA planes to Spain, the foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos has testified: "Our territory may have been used not to commit crimes on it, but as a stopover on the way to committing crime in another country."

Spain, it has now emerged, had a specific agreement with the US to allow flights and visits to Spanish airbases for American planes.

In Portugal, the foreign minister Luis Amado has said flights across his country's airspace took place "under the aegis of the UN and Nato and that Portugal naturally follows the principle of good faith in the relations with its allies". Nato's role in Guantanamo stems from a secret agreement made in Brussels on October 4 2001 by all Nato members, including Britain. Although never made public, Lord Robertson, the former British defence secretary who was later Nato's secretary-general, explained that day that Nato had agreed to provide "blanket overflight clearances for the United States and other allies' aircraft for military flights related to operations against terrorism".

Today, Nato is more coy about its role in helping send prisoners to Guantanamo.

In a letter to Gomes, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the current secretary-general, said no Nato planes had "flown to or from Guantanamo Bay" and that Nato "as an organisation has no involvement or co-ordinating role in providing clearance or overflight rights for other flights". Turkey, meanwhile, has declared that its agencies had "reached no findings regarding any unacknowledged deprivation of liberty conducted by foreign agencies within the territory of the republic of Turkey or any transport by aircraft or otherwise of the persons deprived of their liberty".

In London, Clive Stafford Smith, legal director of Reprieve, said, with America threatening that Guantanamo prisoners faced the death penalty, European governments had made "pious statements" that they would never send prisoners to the US without obtaining assurances they would not be executed.

Stafford Smith added: "Some European governments, it's now clear, systematically assisted in clandestine flights and illegal prisoner transfers to Guantanamo Bay. We need a full investigation and Europeans need to face their responsibility for these crimes."

See flight logs and complete list of prisoners at www.ghostplane.net

Additional reporting: Natalia Viana