Turkey: Suspected CIA flight landed at Istanbul last week
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-26 17:58

Turkish Transportation Minister Binali Yildirim on Saturday confirmed that an airplane, which a Turkish newspaper report said was a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency plane, landed in Istanbul last week.

Hurriyet newspaper reported Saturday that a CIA plane, believed to have been destined for a secret CIA prison, landed for a stopover in Istanbul on its way to the Netherlands on November 15. Yildirim, however, did not confirm that the aircraft was being used by the CIA.

Hurriyet said the DeHavilland airplane, registered as N505LL, arrived at Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen airport from Baku, in Azerbaijan, and left for Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport the next day.

It said the plane belonged to Path Corp., a company previously linked to the CIA.

"The plane in question requested permission to land for technical reasons," the state-owned Anatolia news agency quoted Yildirim as saying.

Yildirim said the plane was not carrying any passengers and that it left Sabiha Gokcen airport after refueling.

"It was one of several planes that land at Sabiha Gokcen for technical reasons," he said.

On Friday, the Dutch government also confirmed that a plane belonging to Path Corp. landed at Amsterdam's airport last week.

The Council of Europe, the continent's main human rights watchdog, is looking into reports that the CIA set up secret jails in some European nations and transported terror suspects by covert flights. It has urged governments to fully provide information on the issue.

The United States has not confirmed the existence of the secret prisons, and Eastern European countries deny knowledge of covert facilities.