Midland MP to quiz Birmingham airport chiefs over rendition claims

Nov 9 2009 by Ben Goldby, Sunday Mercury

A MIDLAND MP is to quiz airport chiefs and the Government over allegations that Birmingham International Airport has been used to smuggle terror suspects by America’s CIA.

It has been claimed that a US plane featured in a European Parliament report into the CIA’s ‘extraordinary rendition’ of terror suspects landed at BIA on Friday, October 2.

A source said the plane, a Gulfstream IV jet, was met by two SAS helicopters.

And he claimed another plane, a Boeing 757 operated by Comco, a private company that provides flights for the US defence department, had arrived a day earlier.

The source said the planes departed BIA at the same time on Saturday, October 3.

Photographs posted on a plane spotter’s website show that all four aircraft were on a strip some distance away from the main runways at the airport.

Last night Lorely Burt, Liberal Democrat MP for Solihull, said she was extremely worried about the possibility of BIA being used for ‘extraordinary rendition’.

The CIA allegedly employs the tactic to transfer suspected terrorists to countries known to employ harsh interrogation techniques, including torture.

She said: “I have asked Birmingham International Airport about rendition flights before and their statement is that they have no knowledge of them.