NBC's Nightly News only network news broadcast not to report Council of Europe's CIA secret prison claims

In contrast with the other two networks' national nightly news broadcasts, NBC's Nightly News has yet to report on conclusions released June 8 by the Council of Europe, Europe's official human rights watchdog agency, that the CIA operated secret prisons in Romania and Poland where at least a dozen Al Qaeda leaders were subjected to interrogation techniques "tantamount to torture."

ABC News chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross gave a full report on the Council of Europe assessment during ABC's World News, while on the CBS Evening News, correspondent Richard Roth discussed the report during a segment on European opposition to the U.S. rendition program, which secretly moves terror suspects to other countries.

On June 8, the Legal Affairs Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly released a report authored by Swiss senator Dick Marty, who led the investigation, concluding that "high-value" detainees were held in secret CIA detention centers in Poland and Romania between 2002 and 2005. President Bush had previously acknowledged the existence of these secret prisons, but the U.S. had not revealed their locations. Bush had also denied that prisoners held at those facilities were tortured, but admitted they were subject to "alternative" interrogation methods which he called "safe and lawful and necessary." According to the report:

What was previously just a set of allegations is now proven: large numbers of people have been abducted from various locations across the world and transferred to countries where they have been persecuted and where it is known that torture is common practice. Others have been held in arbitrary detention, without any precise charges levelled against them and without any judicial oversight -- denied the possibility of defending themselves. Still others have simply disappeared for indefinite periods and have been held in secret prisons, including in member states of the Council of Europe, the existence and operations of which have been concealed ever since.

Some individuals were kept in secret detention centres for periods of several years, where they were subjected to degrading treatment and so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" (essentially a euphemism for a kind of torture), in the name of gathering information, however unsound, which the United States claims has protected our common security.

ABC's World News and the CBS Evening News reported on the Council of Europe's accusations, but NBC's Nightly News did not. ABC's Ross noted, "[T]he report does confirm what ABC News first reported, but also provides a fascinating, new level of detail how the CIA operated its secret prisons." His report continued: "The report said the U.S. put heavy pressure on Poland and Romania to go along. In the case of Romania, there was a kind of quid pro quo with the U.S. reportedly promising to help Romania get into NATO in return for allowing the secret prisons."

CBS' Roth reported that "a report for Europe's human rights agency has named Romania and Poland as places where CIA prisoners were subjected to what amounted to torture." Roth also noted that according to the report, "complicity with the U.S. has put Europe in a moral quagmire."

From the June 8 edition of ABC's World News:

CHARLES GIBSON (anchor): Well, there are new details to report tonight about the secret prisons that the CIA operated in Europe to hold terrorism suspects. Our Brian Ross first disclosed the existence of the prisons in Romania and Poland, and European leaders denied his reports at the time. But today, investigators for the Council of Europe said they found overwhelming evidence that the prisons existed. So Brian is joining us now. Brian?

ROSS: Charlie, the report does confirm what ABC News first reported, but also provides a fascinating new level of detail how the CIA operated its secret prisons.

According to the report, some 30 current and former CIA and European intelligence officers provided overwhelming proof that this airport in Szymany, Poland, was one of the two locations for the CIA secret prisons. The second CIA prison, investigators said, was located at this military air base in Romania. The investigators found the CIA planes from Afghanistan filed phony flight plans, as if they were heading to Glasgow, Scotland. Instead, at the last minute, the CIA planes would veer off over Poland. The reports said at least a dozen top Al Qaeda leaders were transferred by the CIA, and then subjected to what it called techniques tantamount to torture.

In Paris today, the chief investigator, Swiss Senator Dick Marty, said the CIA had been able to move around Europe unobstructed because of what he called the secrecy, cover-up, and dishonesty of high-level European officials.

VERONIKA SZENTE-GOLDSTONE (Human Rights Watch): It is an amazing amount of human rights abuses that have been taking place with the knowledge of huge numbers of people for long years. And -- and the truth has to come out.

ROSS: The report said the U.S. put heavy pressure on Poland and Romania to go along. In the case of Romania, there was a kind of quid pro quo with the U.S. reportedly promising to help Romania get into NATO in return for allowing the secret prisons.

The two prisons were closed a year and a half ago with most of their inmates transferred to Guantánamo. In a statement today, the CIA dismissed the report as biased and distorted but did not, Charlie, specifically deny the central allegations.

GIBSON: Our chief investigative correspondent, Brian Ross.

From the June 8 edition of the CBS Evening News:

ROTH: President Bush acknowledged last year that some terror suspects had been held in secret prisons run by the CIA, but he didn't say where. Now a report for Europe's human rights agency has named Romania and Poland as places where CIA prisoners were subjected to what amounted to torture. Both countries deny it. But full of detail -- pinpointing this airport in eastern Romania, for instance, as one staging point for the secret operation -- the report says complicity with the U.S. has put Europe in a moral quagmire.