News emerged this month that in light of increasing evidence that the CIA operated a secret detention facility in Poland, public prosecutors have initiated an investigation into these long-standing allegations. In August 2008, Polish media reported that a note prepared by military intelligence, confirming the existence of a secret CIA facility, had been seen by government officials in 2006.

Allegations of secret CIA detention facilities in Eastern Europe first emerged in November 2005 in the Washington Post; other media and Human Rights Watch later identified Poland as one of the countries hosting CIA “black sites”. In 2007, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s report affirmed that “there was now enough evidence to state that secret detention facilities run by the CIA did exist in Europe from 2003 to 2005, in particular in Poland and Romania”.