Twenty-one prominent Polish intellectuals have published an open letter condemning the country's apparent complicity with the US in torturing Islamic terrorist suspects on Polish soil.

photo: glowimages.com

The letter follows revelations from a report on the CIA's torture methods regarding alleged terrorists, as released by the US Senate on 9 December.

“In spite of the stubborn denials of the authorities who agreed to create a base [for the use of the CIA], the truth concerning the prison in Kiejkuty has been revealed,'' wrote the signatories, who include film-maker Agnieszka Holland, historian and former Solidarity activist Professor Karol Modzelewski and lawyer Monika Platek.

''We cannot relatavise what happened, even if the guilt of the Polish authorities was limited to surrendering sovereignty over a secret base to an ally, without the knowledge of the interrogation methods used there.

''The justification of torture is a betrayal of the values on which contemporary Poland was built.''

Although Poland launched an investigation in 2008 into allegations of whether the CIA held terrorist suspects at a so-called 'black site' in Poland from 2002-2003, for many years, former prime minister Leszek Miller and former president Aleksander Kwasniewski denied that Poland had hosted such a facility.

The CIA report did not name outright which countries took part in the programme, but the evidence was strong enough for Miller and Kwasniewski to acknowledge that such a prison was operated on Polish soil.

Poland's investigation into the black site, led by the Appellate Prosecutor's Office in Krakow, is ongoing. (nh)