Records suggest mysterious plane ferries CIA detainees to torture sites

[emad]

Chicago Tribune
Investigation indicates Gulfstream's owner seems to exist only on paper
By John Crewdson
Chicago Tribune
Originally published January 9, 2005

PORTLAND, Ore. - The first question is: Where is Leonard T. Bayard? The next question is: Who is Leonard T. Bayard? But the most important question may be: Does Leonard T. Bayard even exist?
The questions arise because the signature of a Leonard Thomas Bayard appears on the annual report of a Portland-based company, Bayard Foreign Marketing LLC, that was filed in August with the Oregon secretary of state.

According to federal records, Bayard Foreign Marketing is the newest owner of a U.S.-registered Gulfstream V executive jet reportedly used since Sept. 11, 2001, to transport suspected al-Qaida operatives to countries such as Egypt and Syria, where some of them claim to have later been tortured.

The Central Intelligence Agency has declined to discuss the plane. But one retired CIA officer said that he understood the Gulfstream had been operated by the Joint Special Operations Command, an interagency unit that organizes counterterrorist operations in conjunction with the CIA and military special forces.

A search of commercial databases turned up no information on Leonard Thomas Bayard: no residence address, no telephone number, no Social Security number, no credit history, no automobile or property ownership records - in short, none of the information commonly associated with real people.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.spyplane09jan09,1,3563450.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines&ctrack=1&cset=true

[izzie]

1. What a gov.

God had better take pity on us.

[tjdee]

2. Does it look like this?

I couldn't resist.

What I find miraculous is that the CIA has been operating in a questionable manner from time to time for years. Americans seem more than happy to watch movies about just that, but tell them something like this and they won't accept it.

[seemslikeadream]

3. This is probably what it looks like

"I'm not at liberty to discuss the affairs of the client business,




Terror suspects' torture claims have Mass. link
Secrecy shrouds transfer jet
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff | November 29, 2004

....

The Sunday Times of Britain reported two weeks ago that it had obtained a classified flight log of the plane that showed 300 flights from Washington, D.C., to 49 nations, including Libya, Jordan, and Uzbekistan -- three countries where the State Department has reported the use of torture. The story focused on the jet and Premier Executive Transport Services, the Massachusetts-registered company that owns it.

Sightings of the plane -- at refueling stops in Ireland and in Karachi, where it reportedly picked up another suspect -- have been published in newspapers across the globe and on the Internet. Records at the US Army Aeronautical Services Agency show the civil aircraft has a permit to land at US military bases worldwide.

...

"I'm not at liberty to discuss the affairs of the client business, mainly for reasons I don't know," said Dean Plakias, whose Washington Street firm in Dedham is listed as the legal local representative of the company. When asked whether the company even exists, Plakias said, "Millions of companies are set up in Massachusetts that are just paper companies."

...

The company first incorporated in Delaware in 1994 and then in Massachusetts two years later. Neither Plakias nor the Delaware resident agent, The Prentice-Hall Corporation System, would release any information about the company or its owners. Both Plakias and an employee at Prentice-Hall said their main role was to forward mail and update annual filings to the government. Plakias acknowledged that he had not filed the required annual report to the Massachusetts secretary of state's office since 2000.

...

People who receive Social Security numbers late in adulthood are either recent immigrants or people given a new identity, said Beatrice Gaines, a spokeswoman for the Social Security Administration. Former CIA director George Tenet told the 9/11 commission in March that "renditions" were a major part of the plan to combat Al Qaeda in the late 1990s and that at least 70 had taken place prior to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

...

Kjell Jönsson, a lawyer for Zery in Sweden, said in a telephone interview that masked US agents inserted an unknown drug into his client's rectum, diapered him, and shackled him before bringing him aboard the plane. Jönsson said they also placed a blindfold on him that remained for some time -- perhaps for weeks -- after his arrival in Egypt. In Egypt, Jönsson said, "They were interrogated under violence. The electrodes were put on sensitive parts of their bodies. It's no secret."

more
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/11/29/terror_suspects_torture_claims_have_mass_link?pg=full

[emad]

4. Thanks,Seems. Great sleuthing as usual.

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