Original Article CIA-prison questions trail Rice Europe is irate over secret jails Joel Brinkley New York Times Dec. 7, 2005 12:00 AM BUCHAREST, Romania - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was criticized Tuesday about covert prisons and a mistaken, secret arrest as she grappled with what has become an incendiary issue in Europe. She declined to answer most questions about the issue posed in two European capitals. Europe has been roiled by reports that the United States maintained secret jails for terror suspects in Europe and by anger over the U.S. practice of "rendition," or transferring, terrorism suspects in secret detention centers in countries outside Europe that routinely use torture. The anger has made it harder for Rice to repair already strained relations with many European nations at odds with U.S. policy on Iraq, like Germany, where she met with the new chancellor, Angela Merkel, hoping for a fresh start. Merkel said at a news conference that Rice had admitted making a mistake when the United States abducted a German citizen, Khaled al-Masri, on suspicions of terrorism and held him in detention for five months. But aides to Rice scrambled to deny that, saying instead that Rice had said only that if mistakes were made, they would be corrected. Masri filed suit in a U.S. court on Tuesday against a former CIA director and three companies he charged were involved in secret flights carrying terrorism suspects. He has said he was tortured and that on Sunday he was denied entry to the United States, where he had hoped to file his lawsuit in person. State Department officials confirmed that he had been denied entry but said he would be allowed into the country if he applied again. As Europeans continue to investigate whether torture or detention of terrorism suspects took place on European soil, Rice assured Merkel that "the United States does not condone torture." "It is against U.S. law to be involved in torture or conspiracy to commit torture," Rice said. "And it is also against U.S. international obligations." But the U.S. definition of torture is in some cases at variance with international conventions, and the administration has maintained in recent years that U.S. law does not apply to prisoners held abroad. The CIA's inspector general found last year that the agency's treatment of terrorism detainees constituted cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, as the international Convention Against Torture defines it. The United States is a signer of that treaty, though with some reservations. An opinion by the Justice Department, issued in August 2002, said interrogation methods just short of those that might cause pain comparable to "organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death" could be allowable without being considered torture. The administration disavowed that classified legal opinion in the summer of 2004, after it was publicly disclosed. But it remains unclear how many of the interrogation techniques authorized in the 2002 opinion are still in CIA use. Congress is debating an amendment, passed in the Senate last month, that would prohibit abuse of terrorism suspects. But the White House is insisting that the CIA be exempted from any such ban. In Romania, Rice signed a military cooperation agreement that would allow U.S. forces to train with Romanian troops at the Mihail Kogalniceanu air base, which Human Rights Watch identified as a likely location of one prison. Rice also would not address an ABC News report that prisoners were whisked away from the air base in Romania shortly before she arrived in the country. Associated Press contributed to this article.