FOREIGN MINISTRY REFUTES ALLEGATIONS OF SECRET CIA

S E C R E T NOUAKCHOTT 000566 SIPDIS NOFORN SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/21/2017 TAGS: MR PGOV PHUM PREL PTER SUBJECT: FOREIGN MINISTRY REFUTES ALLEGATIONS OF SECRET CIA PRISONS IN MAURITANIA Classified By: CDA Steven Koutsis for reasons 1.4 (b),(c) and (d) ¶1. (U) This an action request. Please see paragraph 6. ¶2. (U) A spokesman from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation has categorically denied what he called "baseless" allegations, published in the New Yorker, that the government of Colonel Ely Vall had allowed the creation of secret CIA detention centers in Mauritania. The spokesman SIPDIS emphasized that Mauritania is a democratic state that considers international conventions supreme and irreversible. The government response came following calls from opposition parties for the government's immediate inquiry into the matter. ¶3. (U) In an article published by the New Yorker titled "How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its victims" and available on-line, reporter Seymour Hersh, citing a former senior intelligence official and a government consultant as sources, alleged that after existence of secret CIA prisons in Europe was exposed by the Washington Post in late 2005, the Bush administration "responded with a new detainee center in Mauritania." The sources also said, according to the article: "After a new government friendly to the U.S. took power, in a bloodless coup d'etat in August, 2005,... it was much easier for the intelligence community to mask secret flights there." ¶4. (U) Several local news sources have reported the New Yorker story and the Foreign Ministry's response. Moreover, certain papers have reintroduced the previous rumor that the United States Government had a hand in the 2005 bloodless coup, and one newspaper speculated that the supposed detention center was at the Mauritanian military camp in Oualata. Other press has picked up Hersh's subsequent interview with Democracy Now! correspondent Amy Goodman, where he speculated that 37 to 39 "of the tougher high value targets" who are supposedly unaccounted for were in fact rendered to Mauritania. He called the supposed detention center the "prison of choice." He is quoted to say, "That there is a prison there, no question. All the details, I really don't know." ¶5. (S/NF) Comment: Post does not have any information whatsoever of a CIA detention center or of any renditions to Mauritania. End Comment. ¶6. (C) Action request: Post requests If Raised points on this subject. We propose the following: -- The U.S. Government generally does not comment on these kinds of allegations. -- However, we note the Mauritanian government's categorical denial of what it considers baseless allegations of secret prisons in Mauritania. -- The United States is working closely with the Islamic Republic of Mauritania and our partners in the region to achieve our common objectives of eliminating the global threat of terrorism, ensuring long term stability in the Trans Sahara region and supporting democratic principles and rule of law in Mauritania. Koutsis