Doc. 11302 Report 4.3.2. Arrivals and “drop-offs” at Szymany Airport – Each of these landings was preceded, usually less than twelve hours in advance, by a telephone call to Szymany Airport from the Warsaw HQ of the border guards (Straz Graniczna), or a military intelligence official, informing the Director, Mr Jerzy Kos, of an arriving “American aircraft”. – The airport manager, who assumed the flights were coming from the United States, was instructed to adhere to “strict protocols” to prepare for the flights, including: clearing the runways of all other aircraft and vehicles; and making sure that all Polish staff were brought in to the terminal building from the vicinity of the runway, including local security officials and airport employees. – The perimeter and grounds of the airport were secured by military officers and border guards, the latter of whom were registered on a roll-call document that lists names of those present on more than five dates between 2002 and 2005. – American officials from the nearby Stare Kiejkuty intelligence training base assumed “control” on the dates in question, arriving in several passenger vans in advance of the landing; “everything [was done by] Americans,” said one Polish source present for several landings, “even the drivers [of the vans] were Americans.” – A “landing team” comprising American officials waited at the edge of the runway, in two or three vans with their engines often running; the aircraft touched down in Szymany and taxied to a halt at the far end of the runway, several hundred metres (and out of visible range) from the four-storey terminal control tower. – The vans drove out to the far end of the runway and parked at close proximity to the aircraft; officials from within the vans were said to have boarded the aircraft “every time”, although it is not clear whether any then stayed on board. – All the officers charged with “processing” the passengers on these aircraft were Americans; no Polish eye-witness has yet come forward to state whether or not any detainees disembarked the aircraft upon any of these landings – indeed, it may be that no Polish eye-witness to such an event exists. – However, asked where the HVDs actually entered Poland, one of our sources in Polish military intelligence confirmed that “it was on the runway of Szczytno-Szymany”; another said “they come on planes and they entered at this airport”. – Documentation, in Polish, attests to persons having been “picked up” [verbal translation] at SzczytnoSzymany in conjunction with at least two aircraft landings in 2003; the documentation also refers to the dispatch of vehicles to the airport from the military unit stationed at the Stare Kiejkuty facility. – Having spent only a short time next to the aircraft after each landing, the vans then drove back past the side of the terminal building, without stopping, before leaving airport premises through the front security gate; the vans’ “headlights were on high beam”, forcing the airport officials to “turn their eyes away”. – The vans then drove less than two kilometres along a simple tarmac road, lined by thick pine forest on both sides, through an area which was entirely out of bounds to private or commercial vehicles during these procedures, having been cordoned off for “military operations”; at the end of the tarmac road, the vans travelled north-east beyond Szczytno for approximately fifteen to twenty minutes before joining an unpaved access road next to a lake.175 – At the end of this access road they reached an entrance of the Stare Kiejkuty intelligence training base, where multiple sources have confirmed to me that the CIA held high-value detainees (HVDs) in Poland. 4.3.3. Secret detention operations at Stare Kiejkuty 198. The stringent limitations on information about what happened to detainees “dropped off” at Szymany are perhaps the best example of the “need-to-know” principle of secrecy in practice. Polish officials were not involved in the interrogations or transfers of HVDs, nor did they have personal contact. In explaining his understanding of HVD treatment or conditions in detention, one Polish source said: “I have no understanding of detainee treatment. We were not ‘treating’ the detainees. Those were the responsibilities of the Americans.” 175. A member of our team retraced the route from Szymany Airport to the Stare Kiejkuty intelligence training base. 42