By Gabriela Baczynska
WARSAW (Reuters) - The Polish prosecutor's office isinvestigating allegations that there was a CIA prison in Polandwhere al Qaeda suspects were questioned and guards might haveused methods close to torture, the prime minister's top advisersaid on Friday.
Polish media reported earlier on Friday that a classifiednote written by the Polish secret service had proved theexistence of a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency base in Poland.
"I am not familiar with such a note and I don't think PrimeMinister Donald Tusk is either," Slawomir Nowak, who headsTusk's political office, said in an interview with Tok FMradio.
"But the premier asked the justice minister to clarify thismatter and the country's prosecutor's office is investigatingthe potential existence of the CIA prison."
The Washington Post reported for the first time in 2005,quoting unnamed CIA sources, that CIA prisons existed inEurope. A U.S. human rights group, Human Rights Watch, latersaid Poland and Romania hosted the prisons.
"There definitely was cooperation between Polish andAmerican secret services," a source close to the secret servicetold Reuters. "But whether there was torture at the base,hopefully we will learn about that soon."
Foreign and local media speculated that the base wasoperational between 2002 and 2005, while Aleksander Kwasniewskiwas president and Poland was run by the leftist governments ofLeszek Miller and Marek Belka and then a rightistadministration under Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz.
DENIALS
All three have denied any knowledge of such a prison orbase, as have many other senior officials including top secretservice personnel. Tusk's centre-right cabinet has also playeddown speculation about such a place.
"I hope this will not be confirmed," Nowak said. "It wouldnot only have serious consequences inside the country but wouldalso take a very serious toll on the international scene."
"This has to be investigated very carefully, withoutemotions."
Defence Minister Bogdan Klich told a news conference onFriday he knew nothing about the case but that a final judgmentshould not be based on speculation.
Since 2005, separate reports by the Council of Europe, theEuropean Parliament and the European Commission have concludedthat CIA prisons did exist in Poland and Romania.
All Polish political parties have played down speculationabout the existence of a CIA prison. Under Polish law, a Polewho was party to an agreement allowing the CIA to torturesuspects could be sued in the regular courts or even in theState Tribunal, a special court for government officials.
"We demanded official information from the prime ministerabout the prisons in June, but we never got it," said DawidSzescilo of the Polish unit of the Helsinki Foundation forHuman Rights.
"This is the third government that has banned (the releaseof) any information about the case, and public opinion shouldbe given knowledge of all of this."
(Editing by Tim Pearce)
