Resolution on the US Senate report on the use of torture by the CIA

The European Parliament adopted by 363 votes to 290, with 48 abstentions, a resolution on the US Senate report on the use of torture by the CIA.

The text adopted in plenary was tabled by the S&D, ALDE, GUE/NGL, Greens/EFA and EFDD groups.

Parliament welcomed the decision of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to publish the summary of its report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Programme and condemned the gruesome interrogation practices that characterised these illegal counterterrorism operations. Recalling its absolute condemnation of torture, Parliament underlined the fundamental conclusion by the US Senate that the violent methods applied by the CIA failed to generate intelligence that prevented further terrorist attacks.

Members called on the United States to:

• investigate and prosecute the multiple human rights violations resulting from the CIA rendition and secret detention programmes;
• cooperate with all requests from EU Member States for information, extradition or effective remedies for victims in connection with the CIA programme.

Member States are called upon to:

• investigate the allegations that there were secret prisons on their territory where people were held under the CIA programme and prosecute those involved in these operations;
• investigate fully recent allegations that illegal rendition, detention and torture took place on their territory and to prosecute those responsible.

Parliament instructs its Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, with the association of its Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in particular its subcommittee on Human Rights, to resume its inquiry on ‘alleged transportation and illegal detention of prisoners in European countries by the CIA’ and to report to plenary within a year by following up on the recommendations made in its resolution of 11 September 2012.

Members called for the adoption of an EU internal strategy on fundamental rights and invited the Commission to propose the adoption of such a strategy and a related plan of action.