A two-story complex in a forested suburb of Vilnius that human rights organizations say was a CIA “black site” used for torture during the so-called war on terror is being put up for sale.
Lithuania’s state property bank said Friday it was planning to auction off the 968-square-metre (10,419 square foot) building.
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The site has been a training center for Lithuania’s intelligence service since 2007.
“It is on the property bank’s list of planned objects for sale,” the bank’s spokeswoman, Jolita Skinulyte-Niaksu, told AFP.
Lithuanian officials have denied the site’s use by the CIA but it matches the description of a facility codenamed “Violet” mentioned in a US Senate investigation. A Lithuanian parliament investigation also described a similar facility.
The gated property in the suburb of Antaviliai operated until March 2004 as a riding academy and cafe owned by a local family.
The family then sold the property to Elite, a now-defunct company registered in Delaware, Panama and Washington DC.
US media reports said it was a front company for the CIA.
The European Court of Human Rights in 2018 ruled that there had been a CIA site in Lithuania between 2005 and 2006.
The court ordered Vilnius to pay 100,000 euros ($113,000) in damages to Abu Zubaydah, a suspected top Palestinian operative for Al-Qaeda, alleging that he was tortured at the facility.
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