KIEV, January 10 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine rejected Tuesday a Swiss media report that the CIA was running secret prisons on its territory.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Vasily Filipchuk said that although the ministry was not responsible for prisons in Ukraine, he could personally say the allegation in Switzerland's SonntagsBlick newspaper was "absurd."
Ukraine's Penitentiary and Security services also dismissed the report, which, citing Swiss secret services, said the CIA was running secret prisons in a number of eastern European countries, including Ukraine.
A media storm erupted at the end of last year after reports alleged that the CIA had set up several such prisons following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
EU member countries denied any knowledge either of prisons on their territories or of alleged covert flights arranged through their airports to transfer suspected terrorists to third countries, but the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights launched an investigation and demanded an in-depth inquiry.
