The Workers’ Party have said that the Irish government can no longer continue to deny that the US Central Intelligence Agency have been using Shannon Airport as a route stop for its so-called rendition flights which are illegal under international law.   This morning the international human rights organisation Amnesty International announced that it had irrefutable proof that at least one so-called rendition prisoner was brought through Shannon on a CIA flight after being kidnapped in Baghdad and first moved to an interrogation centre in Baghdad.

Workers’ Party spokesman Andrew McGuinness said that the government’s “see no evil nor hear no evil” attitude towards illegal US rendition flights was a fairytale that nobody other than the government itself believed and that Ireland must stand up for human rights and international law if this country’s name is not to be permanently sullied.

“For too long the government has stonewalled those with information on illegal rendition flights.  They totally ignored the Council of Europe’s thorough investigation of CIA flights through European airports which showed that the government had serious questions to answer.  They cannot ignore this – the smoking gun has finally been found and Ireland has been found to be complicit”.

Mr. McGuinness made a particular call on the Green Party ministers in government to make a stand on this issue.  “If the Green Party has any vestige of principle whatsoever left within it then they must be prepared to confront this issue.  If they do not then they too will be party to the cover-up of a war crime”, he said.