This piece from the Herald shows the level of domestic complicity of the British state and the Scottish Executive. TWO US "torture jets" used to transport terrorist suspects to countries which use interrogation methods banned by the United Nations have often landed at Scottish airports. The Herald has revealed how a Gulfstream jet, owned by a CIA front company, used Prestwick airport on numerous occasions in the wake of the September 11 attacks and refuelled there last summer. Now a check of records has shown that the Gulfstream, nicknamed the Guantanamo Bay Express, visited Glasgow Airport nine times in 2003 and on five occasions stayed for one or two nights. The records show too that a Boeing 737, also understood to be owned by a CIA front company, visited Glasgow three times during the year, staying overnight on two occasions. The Boeing visited RAF Northolt, where the Royal Flight is stationed, twice in December 2003. The SNP called for a ban on their landing in Scotland. The Gulfstream and the 737 are understood to be used by the CIA for "rendition", the government-sanctioned transfer of terrorist suspects to countries where torture is a routine method of extracting information which is then used by the intelligence agencies. The former always departs from Washington and has flown to 50 destinations outside the US, including the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, as well as Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Morocco, Afghanistan and Libya. The prisoner transfers were first reported by Swedish television last year when it described how American agents had arrived in Stockholm on the Gulfstream in December 2001 to take two suspected terrorists to Egypt. Witnesses described seeing the prisoners, who wore hoods, being handed to US agents. The clothes of the handcuffed prisoners were cut off and they were dressed in nappies covered by orange overalls. The witnesses said they were forcibly given sedatives by suppository. The Gulfstream flew them to Egypt, where they claimed they were beaten and tortured with electric shocks to their genitals. In relation to planes landing in Scotland, government agencies and Glasgow Airport said they had no information on the flights or who was on board. Execair, the company which handles the flights in Glasgow, refused to disclose any information about them. Private, non-commercial flights do not need to indicate the purpose of their journeys or who is on board if the plane is only refuelling or if no-one is disembarking. However, Kenny MacAskill, SNP justice spokesman, believes unless the US government gives an assurance that these aircraft are not involved in rendition flights they should not be allowed to land. "Scotland has its own parliament and we have a rule of law. We do seek to abide by international obligations about the treatment of prisoners and it is regrettable the United States does not do so. While it is regrettable we cannot change their policy in the US, we can most certainly not participate in their breaches of what are basic human rights. "The analogy I can think of is when the United States had arguments with the government of New Zealand over whether they would declare if they had nuclear weapons on their ships . . . if the American ships did not declare they were not allowed in." The Department of Transport said that its interest was in the safety of aircraft, and what was inside them was not a matter for the department. "Security is the responsibility of the state in which the aircraft is registered." RAF Northolt confirmed the Boeing 737 landed there in December 2003. "It is a matter for the charter company as to what the activities were. It certainly wasn't a government charter and it certainly had no MoD backing," a spokesman said.