Doves & Eagles -- page 2

Background: Aero Contractors Ltd, is a CIA front company based in Smithfield. For several years, Aero has been heavily involved in the business of "extraordinary rendition." (More details about Aero are here.)

The photo below shows Aero's front gate as it was in April 2007. (This scene has changed, as will be shown a few pages further on.)

   Aero Aero Contractors is only one part of an extensive "Torture Industrial Complex" in North Carolina.  It includes CIA front companies, military training facilities, and connections to private security firms such as Blackwater.  (See a map of this complex here.)

Khaled El Masri (above), is a German citizen of Lebanese descent. A plane from Aero Contractors Ltd. was used to kidnap him at the end of 2003 and take him to Afghanistan for months of torture. More about his case at this CBS News site
 At right is one of Aero's airplanes, N168D, with a long record of involvements in torture taxi flights, captured by plane-spotters parked by an Aero hangar in the summer of 2007.

 

     N168D at Aero, summer 2007. The plane was made in Spain, and can
hold up to 40 passengers, but has been extensively re-engineered inside. It is owned by Devon Holding & Leasing Corp., another CIA shell company, located in Lexington NC.

[Please scroll down.]
NC Stop Torture Now --

  -- has been challenging Aero and the torture complex for nearly two years. The group was founded by local activists after organizers from Stop Torture Now, a group based in St. Louis Missouri, visited North Carolina in 2005 to raise consciousness about US-sponsored torture in the "war on terror."

In November 2005, 14 NCSTN protesters were arrested at Aero when they attempted to deliver a citizens' indictment for torture to the company.

In early 2007, A German prosecutor issued indictments against 13 CIA employees for involvement in the Khaled El Masri kidnapping. Three of those charged are Aero pilots who live near Smithfield. They used CIA aliases for their work; but an investigative team at the website sourcewatch.org has pierced the veil of secrecy and identified them.

 

 

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