News on the 'secret prison'

Inside a 9/11 mastermind's interrogation - IHT, June 22, 2008
...The agency, desperate to keep him alive, flew in a Johns Hopkins Hospital surgeon to consult. Within a few days, Abu Zubaydah was flown to Thailand, to the first of the "black sites," the agency's interrogation facilities for major Qaeda figures.
Thailand, which had long faced Muslim insurgents in its south, became the first choice because CIA officers had a very close relationship with their counterparts in Bangkok, according to one American intelligence official. At first, the official said, "they didn't even tell the prime minister."
Inside a 'Black Site'
It was at the Thai jail, not far from Bangkok, that Martinez first tried his hand at interrogation on Abu Zubaydah, who refused to speak Arabic with his captors but spoke passable English. It was also there, as previously reported, that the CIA would first try physical pressure to get information, including the near-drowning of waterboarding...

US and Thailand: Allies in torture - Asia Times, January 25, 2008
... Political analysts and diplomats in Thailand suspect that the prison was, and perhaps still is, situated at a military base in the northeastern province of Udon Thani from where the US launched its bombers during the Vietnam War and is currently believed to monitor regional radio communications, including inside China.
Wherever the CIA-run interrogation facilities are situated, the torture of suspects in Thailand apparently represents the latest US violation of the Geneva Conventions and also controversially violates Thai law and sovereignty. The US congressional revelations about the facility also raises hard new questions about the role and possible complicity of Bangkok-based senior US officials, including previous US ambassadors Darryl Johnson and Ralph "Skip" Boyce.
The interrogations captured on the destroyed CIA tapes took place in 2002, during Johnson's term as the top US official in Bangkok; Boyce, recently retired from the foreign service, meanwhile recently admitted to a former Thai legislative aide of having knowledge of the facility but declined to give any details...

No CIA prisoners brought here since 2003 - Bangkok Post, January 22, 2008
...Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister at the time of the interrogations, has always denied that there was any CIA "base" or "prison" in Thailand. Foreign sources have told the Bangkok Post that the denials were technically correct.
The interrogations - or torture - of al-Qaeda suspects were carried out at so-called safe houses on a military base in Thailand, the sources said...

Waterboarding in Thailand: Station chief made appeal to destroy CIA tapes - Washington Post, January 16, 2008
In late 2005, the retiring CIA station chief in Bangkok sent a classified cable to his superiors in Langley asking if he could destroy videotapes recorded at a secret CIA prison in Thailand that in part portrayed intelligence officers using simulated drowning to extract information from suspected al-Qaeda members...

Thailand's "secret prisons" - June 13, 2007
The Council of Europe released a report today on secret prisons: ‘High-value’ detainees were held in secret CIA detention centres in Poland and Romania, says PACE committee

This report also had references to the reported Thai secret prison:

...we have been told that Thailand hosted the first CIA “black site,” and that Abu Zubaydah was held there after his capture in 2002. CIA sources indicated to us that Thailand was used because of the ready availability of the network of local knowledge and bilateral relationships that dated back to the Vietnam War.

One CIA source told us: “in Thailand, it was a case of ‘you stick with what you know’;” however, since the allegations pertaining to Thailand were not the direct focus of our inquiry, we did not elaborate further on these references in our discussions. The specific location of the “black site” in Thailand has been publicly alleged to be a facility in Udon Thani, near to the Udon Royal Thai Air Force Base in the north-east of the country. This base does have long-standing connections to with the approach of most US partner countries, the Thai Government has denied these allegations outright.

COMMENTARY: What the US could learn from Thailand - Asia Times, April 7, 2006
...Ralph "Skip" Boyce, the garrulous US ambassador to Thailand, has maintained that Washington has in no way assisted Thaksin's controversial counter-insurgency efforts, which, similar to US military operations in Iraq, have been attended by allegations of torture and abuse of Muslim detainees.
Bangkok-based European and Asian diplomats, however, beg to differ, claiming that the United States' behind-the-scenes role in the conflict is an open secret in diplomatic circles.
...Thaksin's Thailand plays host to a joint top-secret US Central Intelligence Agency-run counter-terrorism center, charged with managing covert operations throughout Southeast Asia, according to a senior Thai intelligence official attached to the National Intelligence Agency. Those ties appear to have paved the way for the CIA to establish a secret prison in Thailand, where abducted terror suspects were allegedly held and interrogated. Ambassador Boyce has repeatedly declined to comment on the specifics of the secret detention center. (The facility was closed down in 2003, according to the Washington Post.)...
More on the 'secret prison' - November 7, 2005
Ban Dung is here. Is this the VOA complex?

No presence of secret CIA prison in Thailand, PM confirms - TNA, November 5, 2005
...The prime minister said the report by the Washington Post, which claimed that the Voice of America (VOA) relay transmitting station in Ban Dung district of the country's northeastern province of Udon Thani was used as holding center for top al-Qaeda suspects, was groundless because the radio station relayed short-wave frequency broadcasts; and therefore, must have several tall antennas, he said.
The more than 3,000 rai of land, on which the radio station sits, is occupied and has been leased for a long time with tight security being provided to the station...

Disbelief at Thai terror centre denial - AAP, November 5, 2005
...The Thai PM's Office spokesman, Suranand Vejjajiva, insisted no such prison existed at the station and says everyone he has spoken to, including the Udon Thani governor, the VOA station manager and the US embassy, have assured him nothing out of the ordinary was going on...
US Gov't: No hidden jail in Thailand for al-Qaeda suspects - TNA, November 4, 2005
...He further said that the Washington Post is obliged to publish a correction of its news report which identified Thailand and several other countries as alleged havens for CIA 'black sites' and protected several Eastern European nations from being identified for similar allegations.
The foreign minister declined to comment on rumours that the alleged 'black site' is located in Baan Dung district of Udorn Thani province, as a fact-finding probe has not yet been done...
CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons - Debate Is Growing Within Agency About Legality and Morality of Overseas System Set Up After 9/11 - Washington Post, November 2, 2005
...About 30 are considered major terrorism suspects and have been held under the highest level of secrecy at black sites financed by the CIA and managed by agency personnel, including those in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, according to current and former intelligence officers and two other U.S. government officials. Two locations in this category -- in Thailand and on the grounds of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay -- were closed in 2003 and 2004, respectively.
...By mid-2002, the CIA had worked out secret black-site deals with two countries, including Thailand and one Eastern European nation, current and former officials said. An estimated $100 million was tucked inside the classified annex of the first supplemental Afghanistan appropriation.
Then the CIA captured its first big detainee, in March 28, 2002. Pakistani forces took Abu Zubaida, al Qaeda's operations chief, into custody and the CIA whisked him to the new black site in Thailand, which included underground interrogation cells, said several former and current intelligence officials. Six months later, Sept. 11 planner Ramzi Binalshibh was also captured in Pakistan and flown to Thailand.
But after published reports revealed the existence of the site in June 2003, Thai officials insisted the CIA shut it down, and the two terrorists were moved elsewhere, according to former government officials involved in the matter. Work between the two countries on counterterrorism has been lukewarm ever since...

The government denies this: NEWSPAPER REPORT: Secret jail report 'untrue' - The Nation, November 3, 2005
..."This is a completely groundless story. There is no secret al-Qaeda detention site here in Thailand," Government spokesman Surapong Suebwonglee said in response to the report...
Thailand not mentioned in secret detention center report - June 18, 2004
Last week we pointed out the Guardian story mentioning Thailand as part of of U.S.'s secret prison system. Today, a press release and report from Human Rights First makes no mention of Thailand as a holding point for U.S. prisoners.
Earlier: Thailand part of US's "secret worldwide prison system"? - The Guardian, June 13, 2004
The United States government, in conjunction with key allies, is running an 'invisible' network of prisons and detention centres into which thousands of suspects have disappeared without trace since the 'war on terror' began... Terrorists have also been sent to facilities in Baku, Azerbaijan, and to unidentified locations in Thailand. Scores more are thought to be at a US airbase in the Gulf state of Qatar, and a large number are believed to have been sent to Saudi Arabia, where CIA agents are allowed to sit in on some of the interrogations... American officials are unrepentant. 'You have to break eggs to make omelettes,' said one last week."
...Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who both helped plan the 11 September attacks, were also transferred to American custody soon after their capture by Pakistani security forces in September 2002 and March 2003 respectively. They are believed to have been interrogated in Thailand...
Saddam in Thailand? - December 16, 2003
Sources have long contended that most high level prisoners from Afghanistan and Iraq were first interrogated in Thailand (Thai officials deny this). Thus, rumors started to swirl as Saddam's capture was announced that Saddam himself was either on his way to Thailand or was already here. On Sunday night, the Associated Press reported that Saddam had been moved out of Iraq. CNN reported that Saddam was in Qatar, but the next day this was denied. This is the usual pattern: 'sources' tell various news outlets about the whereabouts of a high-ranking POWs and then the next day this is matter-of-factly denied.
Also: Saddam Whereabouts Still a Mystery, Reuters
UPDATE December 18, 2003: CNN is now quoting Iraqi officials as saying Saddam is still in Iraq and has never left...