Secret services and intelligence agencies must be held accountable for human rights violations such as torture, abduction or renditions and not shielded from scrutiny by unjustified resort to the doctrine of “state secrets”, according to the Legal Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). In a draft resolution adopted today in Paris, based on a report by Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE), the committee also gave its verdict on judicial or parliamentary inquiries launched after two major reports by Mr Marty five years ago named European governments which had hosted CIA secret prisons or colluded in rendition and torture. (more...)