The Swiss intelligence community has allegedly been aware of secret CIA prisons in eastern Europe for nearly two months according to leaked documents.
The intelligence services refuse to comment the affair, revealed by the Sonntagsblick tabloid, while Swiss senator Dick Marty who is investigating the prison claims for the Council of Europe, remains cautious.
The Sonntagsblick wrote on Sunday that military intelligence intercepted a fax received by the Egyptian embassy in London supposedly confirming the existence of the detention centres.
The message was picked up by the secret service's Onyx satellite listening system on November 10, just three days after the Council of Europe launched an investigation into allegations that the CIA was running secret interrogation centres in Europe.
The Egyptian fax stated that 23 Iraqi and Afghan citizens had been transferred to a Romanian military base near the port of Constanza for interrogation purposes. It added that similar detention centres had been set up in Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria.
More at http://www.swissinfo.org/...
Now you may laugh, but Switzerland indeed does have an Echelon like system, called Onyx. Here is one of their sites:
Edit: I just checked the defense department's website - their response acknowledges the authenticity of the document. "The article... is based on a paper which is integrally classified as SECRET" (my translation). The department launched an investigation because of the leak.