EU intelligence chief: No way of checking if information came from torture

BRUSSELS - Ilkka Salmi, the head of the EU’s intelligence-sharing bureau, IntCen, has said he has no way of checking whether his information was obtained using torture.

Speaking on Wednesday (10 December) in light of the US Senate revelations, he noted that IntCen “doesn’t have [its own] intelligence-gathering operations anywhere in the world” and relies on information forwarded by EU countries.

“We cannot indeed assess how the intelligence is collected when the member states’ services share it with us. We have to live with the expectation it’s collected in accordance with binding laws and regulations [in those countries] and with international treaties and conventions”.

“We have to assume that whatever is shared with us is in accordance with national legislation … [but] there is no mechanism to verify the method of intelligence gathering”.

He added that, in some “extremely few exceptions”, IntCen does get material from “third countries”, such as the US.

But recalling his work in the Finnish security service, the Suojelupoliisin, prior to taking up his EU post in 2010, he said: “As I’ve been for a relatively long time in an operational agency in one of the member states the only thing I can say, on behalf of that service, is that we never used the kind of methods that have now been revealed by the Senate report”.

The 500-page Senate paper, out on Tuesday, caused shock by confirming details of torture of terrorist suspects by the US intelligence agency, the CIA, at secret facilities abroad in the wake of 9/11.

The redacted report doesn’t say which European countries took part in the programme.

But former Polish leader Aleksander Kwasniewski told Polish radio on Wednesday that his country hosted a US facility.

Investigations by the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, and NGOs have also implicated Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and the UK.

But none of them obtained hard evidence due to lack of government co-operation.

For its part, the US noted that president Barack Obama i halted the practice when he came to power.

“We value our partnerships around the world. We hope and have confidence that foreign governments and foreign publics will understand this is a programme that was ended years ago”, one senior US official told press.

No brainers

Salmi, who was speaking at an event organised by the Martens Centre, a Brussels-based think tank, also shed some rare light on IntCen’s day-to-day work.

He said its current priorities are “no-brainers”, listing: the Russia crisis; the war in Iraq and Syria; “foreign fighters” (EU citizens who joined Islamist groups in the Middle East); north African migration; terrorist threats to EU civil aviation; cyberwarfare; and “information warfare” or foreign propaganda.

He added that since the Arab upheavals in 2010 and 2011 it has had to file ever more ad hoc reports instead of long-term strategic analysis.

He noted that apart from member states’ contributions, he also gets information from: the EU’s 140 foreign embassies; its overseas civilian and military crisis missions; the EU satellite information centre in Spain; and “open source” information, including social media.

But he said he has no mandate to go after people’s private data beyond what they post on the Internet.

He also said that - aside from terrorism alerts - his work is limited to foreign hotspots and doesn’t cover potential instability inside EU states.

Salmi's texts are sent to the cabinets of relevant EU commissioners, to Europol (the EU’s joint police body), Easa (its air safety agency), and to Frontex (its border control agency).

But it mostly serves the EU foreign service, the EU Council’s counter-terrorist co-ordinator, and the Council’s Political and Security Committee (PSC) - a cell which handles foreign crises.

He noted that small EU countries, with small intelligence services, have the most to gain.

Being realistic

“Let’s be realistic, [PSC] ambassadors from the bigger member states will always have additional information. But at least they all have something - a common intelligence product - which they can count on”.

Salmi noted in an earlier press interview that IntCen has 70 staff, about 30 of whom are seconded from EU states, and the rest of whom have a background in the EU institutions.

It produces about 500 reports a year, half of which are classified as “Restricted” and the other half as “Confidential”.

Referring to recent calls by, for instance, the EU’s former justice commissioner Viviane Reding i, for IntCen to become a fully operational service, Salmi noted there is no legal framework or political will to make the leap forward.

“Who would it be accountable to - the European Parliament or somebody else? Who would give the order to launch operations? Who would carry them out and where? There are many practical issues and the devil is in the detail”, he told the Martens Centre event.

“So, certainly, I don’t believe there will be an EU CIA any time soon”.