THE American Civil Liberties Union's new lawsuit against Jeppesen has blown the torture-flight charges against the San Jose company up into national news.

But behind the headlines is the story of how investigative journalists in Europe, with the help of government officials in several countries, were able to link Jeppesen to the CIA's extraordinary rendition program using codes, logs and flight plans—evidence that has gone unreported, but could be critical should the case go to trial.

Claudio Gatti, an investigative journalist with Il Sole 24 Ore, an Italian newspaper, actually broke the Jeppesen story for the International Herald Tribune. In a phone interview, he explained how his investigation connects the Boeing subsidiary to the rendition of at least five people, including the ACLU's three plaintiffs, and to the CIA's most well-known victim, German citizen Khaled El-Masri. El-Masri says he was seized while on vacation in Macedonia and flown to a secret prison in Afghanistan, where he was imprisoned, interrogated and tortured for five months before being released without charges. Gatti says El-Masri was rendered in the same Jeppesen-serviced plane as ACLU plaintiff Binyam Mohamed.

According to the ACLU's lawsuit, Jeppesen provided flight and logistical support to more than 70 CIA rendition flights over a four-year period. The flights transported suspects to secret detention and interrogation facilities in countries where the U.S. Department of State has said the use of torture is "routine" and to U.S.-run detention facilities overseas where the feds say U.S. law doesn't apply.

Gatti says he began investigating when he became interested in the extraordinary rendition of one of the plaintiffs, Abou Elkassim Britel, an Italian citizen. Because he wrote a book about an airplane incident, Gatti had a network of contacts in the civil aviation community. A contact told him that the CIA has shell companies that own planes, but can't fly them without real companies who have an infrastructure to make and carry out flight arrangements.

The contact said these companies were profiting from the extraordinary renditions and that flight logs would link them to the CIA. For Gatti, that was a revelation.

"Flight logs are kept by aviation authorities for years," he says, "so if you go back and find a flight where you think a prisoner was transported, there's documentary evidence."

Gatti obtained flight records from European Parliamentary and Council of Europe commissions, and from civil aviation authorities in Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands. He says his investigation parallels the ACLU's and proves that Jeppesen played a major role in the program.

"The CIA couldn't have had this program without Jeppesen's support providing flight permits, weather reports and assistance with fees and refueling," he says. "The CIA has planes but no support network."

The Smoking Gun

Gatti discovered four U.S. companies that arranged the CIA's extraordinary renditions' flights during this period: Jeppesen, Air Routing International, Baseops Flight Planning and Universal Weather & Aviation Inc. Each CIA plane was assigned to one of the four companies who consistently serviced its flights.

"A Gulfstream V, N379P became known as the Guantánamo Bay Express because it was used so much for these flights," Gatti says. He says he knows this because each flight log contains codes that specify the flight's airport departure, arrival and originator. "The originator files the flight plan and supports the flight," says Gatti.

"That's how I found out Jeppesen was involved. Their originator code is KSFOXLDI." Gatti says.

"K" is the international letter for the United States, "SF" is San Francisco and "OXLDI" is unique to Jeppesen.

The ACLU's lawsuit names a Gulfstream V, formerly registered as N379P, as one of 15 aircraft serviced by Jeppesen for the CIA. Gatti said that right after 9/11, one of the first renditions was almost exposed because of this plane. On Oct. 23, 2001, at Pakistan's Karachi airport, masked men handed an individual over to a group of Americans who had just landed in a Gulfstream V executive jet. The story surfaced three days later in a News International English-language newspaper, which gave the Gulfstream's tail number, N379P.

"That incident showed that any glitch in the flight support services could have endangered the entire rendition program," says Gatti, "and that professionals such as those from Jeppesen were essential to its success."

The ACLU is using Jeppesen to put the CIA's extraordinary rendition program on trial. Last March, the U.S. Appeals Court dismissed El-Masri's lawsuit against former CIA director George J. Tenet and 10 unnamed CIA officials after the government invoked "state secrets" privilege. Last month, the ACLU petitioned the United States Supreme Court to review this case.

Grounding Torture

Meanwhile about 50 congressmembers, including locals Mike Honda, Tom Lantos and Zoe Lofgren, have co-sponsored H.R. 1352, the Torture Outsourcing Prevention Act.

H.R. 1352 would shut down the CIA's extraordinary renditions, barring the government and its contractors from transferring suspects to countries where torture is legal.

"Congress cannot delay any longer in addressing the administration's use—free from any real judicial or congressional oversight—of extraordinary rendition," says Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who drafted this legislation.

H.R. 1352 prompted the South Bay Coalition Against Torture, representing the National Lawyers Guild, Amnesty International and the South Bay Mobilization for Peace and Justice, to ask the Santa Clara County Human Relations Commission to call on the Board of Supervisors to condemn the torture flights and urge Jeppesen to break its ties with the CIA. (The coalition has also pressured San Jose's City Council and Downtown Association, of which Jeppesen is a member, to take action.) Last month, the commission invited Jeppesen to give their side, but representatives from the company failed to show.

"We just don't discuss who our clients are or what services we provide for them," says Jeppesen spokesman Tim Neale. "Flight plans require us to know where they want to go and when they want to go, but don't require us to know the purpose of the flight."

However, that argument may not hold for much longer. "Torture is not a San Jose value," says Sanjeev Bery, the ACLU's San Jose Director, "and our community leaders should tell Jeppesen that they shouldn't be profiting from the practice of torture. It has no place in San Jose."

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