A German daily reports the existance of at least three secret CIA prisons in Pakistan. A German doctor, says he has treated a child in one of those prisons for tuberculosis.

I have so far found no note on this report in the English speaking press, so here is my translation.

[This is a complete translation of the article titled Geheimgefängnisse der CIA in Pakistan by a reporter of the German daily Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung. It was published in German on September 29, 2006.
The translation is as close to the German original as possible. b.]

The cooperation between the USA and Pakistan in the anti-terror-fight is far more comprehensive than has been known up to now. The US foreign secret services CIA operated at least three secret prisons with more than 1,000 detainees in Pakistan.

According to investigations done by this paper the installations are located near the towns of Kohat, Miran Shah and Wana in the west Pakistani region North-Waziristan and Banu. Many Taliban and Qaeda fighteres had retracted into the difficult accessible mountanious area at the boarder to Afghanistan after the US invasion in Kabul 2001. As Pakistani security sources reported, more than 1000 soldiers lost their life in the region North-Waziristan in fights during the Pakistani March 2004 offense there.

The prisons are to the outside under Pakistani control. They are heavily shielded from the public, but are co-led by the CIA. According to eye-witnesses there are up to 1,000 terror suspects in the camp near Miran Shah alone. A German doctor reported to our paper that he had treated an imprisoned twelfe year old child there for tuberculosis a few month ago. "The boy was already imprisoned for a year in this CIA’s Pakistani Abu Ghraib – without indictment, legal counsel and without medical treatment," the doctor complained.

US president Bush did conceed the existance of secret CIA prisons for the first time early September. Pakistans president Pervez Musharraf reveals in his new biography "In the line of fire", that the CIA payed several million Dollars for the extradition of over 360 terror-suspects.

Amnesty International accuses Pakistan to "systematic" violations of human rights during the fight against terrorism. The Pakistan expert of the human-rights-organistaion, Sigrid Krieg, says the displacement of suspects to secret locations were prevalent in Pakistan. Security forces had abused and tortured prisoners.

During fights in the region of North-Waziristan inhabitants were displaced and may towns "were razed to the ground", said Krieg. The number of civil victims is assumed to be high.

(Note on the paper that published this story: The Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung (NOZ) is a north-western German regional paper covering several counties, national and international news with a circulation of 185,000 during weekdays and 450,000 on weekends. It is well known, often cited and held in high regard by other outlets for its non-regional coverage and interviews. The paper is hold privatly and political neutral. The best comparison to the US market is probably the former Knight Ridder, now McClatchy newspapers. In short – it is a serious paper that would not publish this without checking its sources.)