TWO SLOVAK members of the European Parliament (MEPs), Monika Beňová and Miroslav Mikolášik, are on a special parliamentary investigation committee set up to review the activities of the US secret service, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), on the territories of EU member and candidate states.
Beňová, a member of Slovakia's opposition Smer party, said that the MEPs so far don't know exactly how the committee will work, the SME daily wrote.
Several European countries are also investigating claims that the CIA used European airports for "extraordinary rendition" - kidnapping and illegal extradition - of people it suspected of terrorism, and set up secret prisons in several EU member and candidate countries.
"We will be requiring secret information from individual governments," Beňová said.
Mikolášik, a member of Slovakia's ruling Christian Democratic Movement, said he had "guarantees that secret CIA prisons never existed in Slovakia".
The committee is to investigate whether CIA agents "kidnapped and held suspects in secret places". Its 46 members were appointed on Wednesday under the chairmanship of centre-right Portuguese and Greek MEPs Carlos Coelho and Georgios Dimitrakopoulos.
Compiled by Martina Jurinová from press reports
TheSlovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the informationpresented in its Flash News postings.
