David Davis asks did MI5 help toture Binyam Mohamed?

[IanFantom]

See also:
Sami al Saadi tortured after MI5/MI6 Rendition to Libya

Press Association: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5j5vvQ9lAQxRRiT_ C2yhpjgqL4lUA

[Mark Gobell]

Looking forward to the Zio-boy David squirming out of this one !

[TonyGosling]

[Mark Gobell]

I feel a Bin Laden voice over coming on . . .

[TonyGosling]

Traitor Milibrain 'misled' judges over torture evidence
Evidence that a British resident was tortured before being flown to Guantanamo Bay may yet see the light of day after senior judges hearing the case were told yesterday they had been misled by the Government.

The Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, argued on Wednesday that national security could be compromised if secret CIA documents detailing the interrogation of Binyam Mohamed were placed in the public domain. His comments came after the High Court refused to order the disclosure of a CIA dossier referring to the treatment of Mr Mohamed, 31, who was arrested as a terrorism suspect. It said that to do so would put the British public at risk because America had threatened to withdraw co-operation in terror cases.
In their ruling, Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones said they decided not to release the documents because Mr Miliband believed there was a "real risk" that the potential loss of intelligence co-operation would seriously increase the terror threat faced by the UK. Yesterday, however, the Foreign Secretary told MPs that Washington did not "threaten" to break off co-operation, but had simply affirmed that the sharing of information could be damaged.
Mr Mohamed, an Ethiopian, was granted refugee status in the UK in 1994. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and handed over to US agents. He claims he was secretly flown to Morocco and tortured before being moved to Afghanistan and finally, in 2004, to the US naval base in Cuba, where he remains. All terror charges against him were dropped last year.
He says the evidence against him was based on confessions extracted by torture and ill-treatment – a claim denied by the US – and that British agencies were complicit in his torture.
Last night, his lawyers wrote to the High Court to ask the two judges to reconsider their judgment, arguing that ministers were now denying that disclosure of the CIA dossier threatened joint anti-terror operations. Mr Mohamed's counsel, Dinah Rose, QC, quoted Mr Miliband as saying that no threat to end intelligence-sharing was ever made to Britain by the US....
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ministers-misled-judges -over-torture-evidence-1547648.html

[Disco_Destroyer]

Haha US to refuse to co-operate in Torture I mean terror cases

[Mark Gobell]

[outsider]

The most pressing issue with this case is to get the UK Government to press for Binyam's immediate release, and to offer him a home in the UK if he wishes, before he is 'suicided' or has a 'heart attack'.
Once the guy is safe, we can forensicate till Kingdom Come.

Letters to MP's, please!!

[TonyGosling]

UK government suppressed evidence on Binyam Mohamed torture because MI6 helped his interrogators
The Government suppressed evidence on the torture of terror suspect Binyam Mohamed because the documents reveal that MI6 helped his interrogators............

Milliband and Binyam - but who is the greater man?

........Material in a CIA dossier on Mr Mohamed that was blacked out by High Court judges contained details of how British intelligence officers supplied information to his captors and contributed questions while he was brutally tortured, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.
Intelligence sources have revealed that spy chiefs put pressure on Mr Miliband to do nothing that would leave serving MI6 officers open to prosecution, or to jeopardise relations with the CIA, which is passing them "top notch" information on British terrorist suspects from its own informers in Britain.......
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/4551441/UK -government-suppressed-evidence-on-Binyam-Mohamed-torture-because-MI6- helped-his-interrogators.html

[TonyGosling]

DAVID ROSE: How I (almost) made Miliband admit the truth about torture
....This situation is unprecedented. Either the Foreign Secretary is being less than completely truthful, and there have indeed been US threats, or, as he implies, two extremely experienced judges are so stupid that they have failed to grasp his argument.
How nice it would be to believe Mr Miliband who is, to give him credit, trying to bring Mr Mohamed home. But my submission contains some of the reasons why I’m not sure we can.
Over the years, I wrote, Government officials ‘have, on several occasions, made statements to myself and other journalists about the treatment of detainees that have subsequently been shown to be inaccurate’. I cited the case of the Tipton Three, the first three British prisoners freed from Guantanamo, in 2004. In an interview with me for this newspaper, they described a horrific ordeal, adding that not only US but British officials had been complicit.........
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1138809/DAVID-ROSE-How-I-Milib and-admit-truth-torture.html

[redadare]

It seems to me that we don't need Milliband, the US or anyone else to prove torture.

Being kidnapped (not arrested by civilian police for some alleged offence), transported to another country (I assume against his will), held for seven years without access to any reasonable legal redress, is in itself torture.

Of course like all the other Guantanmo detainees, if they actually had any evidence of wrong doing, he would have been brought to trial, unless of course they had something else to hide apart from what we already know as irrefutable.

[TonyGosling]

RIGHTS-US: Rendition Case Enters "Bizarre" Realms of Secrecy
By William Fisher

NEW YORK, Feb 13 (IPS) - A prominent British-American lawyer who represents an Ethiopian-born Guantanamo detainee is charging that U.S. Defence Department officials are intentionally concealing evidence of his client's rendition and torture from President Barack Obama.

The lawyer is Clive Stafford Smith, director of the legal charity Reprieve. He says he sent a letter to Obama through the Defence Department detailing "truly medieval" abuse inflicted on Binyam Mohamed, but that much of it was blacked out, preventing the president from reading it.

In the letter to the president, Stafford Smith urges Obama to be aware of the "bizarre reality" of the situation. "You, as commander in chief, are being denied access to material that would help prove that crimes have been committed by U.S. personnel. This decision is being made by the very people who you command."

The central figure in this British case is the same Binyam Mohamed who appealed a separate U.S. case, on behalf of himself and four other terror suspects, to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco last week.

In that case, government lawyers from the Obama administration sought a decision not to reinstate a case that was thrown out by a lower court last year because government lawyers argued successfully that allowing the case to go forward would jeopardise U.S. national security.....

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45767

[Mark Gobell]

Foreign Office link to torture cover-up

* Paul Harris in New York and Mark Townsend
* The Observer, Sunday 15 February 2009
* Article history

The Foreign Office (FCO) solicited the letter from the US State Department that forced British judges to block the disclosure of CIA files documenting the torture of a British resident held in Guantánamo Bay, the Observer can reveal.

The letter said that the release of papers relating to Binyam Mohamed would damage future intelligence sharing between the two countries.

A former senior State Department official said that it was the Foreign Office that initiated the "cover-up" by asking the State Department to send the letter so that it could be introduced into the court proceedings.

The revelation sparked fresh claims that the government is trying to suppress torture evidence relating to Mohamed, who is expected to be released this week after four years and flown to RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire.

The former senior State Department official said: "Far from being a threat, it was solicited [by the Foreign Office]." The Foreign Office asked for it in writing. They said: 'Give us something in writing so that we can put it on the record.' If you give us a letter explaining you are opposed to this, then we can provide that to the court."

The letter, sent by the State Department's top legal adviser John Bellinger to foreign secretary David Miliband's legal adviser, Daniel Bethlehem, on 21 August last year, said: "We want to affirm in the clearest terms that the public disclosure of these documents or of the information contained therein is likely to result in serious damage to US national security and could harm existing intelligence-sharing arrangements."

The letter provoked uproar when the judges in the case said it amounted to a clear threat from the US government to Britain.

David Davis, the former shadow home secretary, said the revelation that the Foreign Office solicited the letter contradicted Miliband's statement that Britain was responding to American pressure.

Davis accused Miliband of acting to "prevent his own government's embarrassment", amid allegations that the files contain evidence that UK intelligence agencies may have been complicit in Mohamed's torture.

Clive Stafford Smith, director of the legal charity Reprieve, said: "With each twist and turn, it becomes obvious that the US and the UK have to release this information."

The Foreign Office last night confirmed that it had requested the letter from the State Department, but said it was "sensible and proper" that they wanted a US statement on the case for the legal proceedings.

A Scotland Yard doctor yesterday visited Mohamed, 30, at Guantánamo's Camp Delta to ascertain whether he was fit enough to fly home.

Mohamed was seized by Pakistani authorities in 2002 and turned over to US intelligence officials as a suspected terrorist. He was shuttled between CIA-operated facilities in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Morocco before arriving at Guantánamo in 2004.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/15/foreign-office-guantanamo- torture

[TonyGosling]

Yeah, like he was self-mutilating now the FO seem to be hinting. Right. And spot the not-so subtle midnight change of headline. Demanded, no doubt, by lawyers being paid ridiculous sums by Joe Public.

MI5 colluded in torture of British terror suspects in foreign countries
By Ian Drury, Dan Newling and Sam Greenhill
Last updated at 1:20 AM on 19th February 2009

Britain's security services repeatedly colluded in the systematic torture of UK resident Binyam Mohamed, it was claimed last night.

British intelligence knew he was being tortured in prisons in Pakistan and Morocco, according to official records of court and Parliamentary hearings into the case.

Not only did the spies not do enough to help, they also actively benefited from – and appeared to encourage – his ill-treatment, the documents suggest.

'Torture by proxy': Gordon Brown denied that the Government had encouraged the torture of British terror suspects as Binyam Mohamed (left), the last UK resident at Guantanamo Bay, prepared to fly home

They allege an MI5 agent visited Mohamed and that British intelligence services even provided questions for interrogators to ask.

Ethiopian-born Mohamed, 30, who came to the UK as a 16-year-old asylum seeker and lived here for seven years, claims he was tortured in Pakistan, Morocco, Afghanistan and the U.S. Guantanamo Bay detention centre.

He says he was beaten, deprived of sleep and had his genitals sliced with a scalpel in a bid to make him confess to an Al Qaeda 'dirty bomb' plot.

Yesterday Liberal Democrat spokesman Edward Davey accused the Government of employing a secret policy of 'torture by proxy'.

He said: 'Up to now the allegation was that Britain was complicit in torture by others because we knew about it and did not object. But increasingly it looks as though we were much more than just complicit – it seems as if we were aiding and abetting.

'If the British were allowing their evidence to be used in interrogations involving torture, then that comes close to torture by proxy.'

The allegations have put Foreign Secretary David Miliband under intense political pressure.

Despite his claim that Britain 'abhors' torture and never condones it, he has refused to make public details of Mohamed's treatment during the six years he was held by the Americans.

It has also emerged Mr Miliband solicited a letter from the White House which persuaded High Court judges to suppress crucial evidence.

A full description of Mohamed's treatment – which he claims prove he was tortured and that British agents were complicit – is held in 44 classified documents in Washington.

But the judges 'reluctantly' banned their release after being warned that it could affect U.S. willingness to share intelligence with Britain.

It also emerged yesterday that a top-level Parliamentary investigation has been told the Government 'actively encouraged' the torture of British residents detained in terror swoops overseas.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights, made up of MPs and peers, has published damaging claims that MI5 and MI6 officials turned a blind eye as British-based citizens endured torture at the hands of Pakistan's intelligence agencies.

Human Rights Watch told the JCHR, it was 'mind-boggling' that British agents interrogating suspects could have 'failed to notice' they had undergone serious violence.

But they simply treated it as 'business as usual'. Andrew Dismore, the Labour MP who is chairman of the JCHR, is taking the evidence so seriously he will call Home Secretary Jacqui Smith before the committee.

Gordon Brown said yesterday: 'We've got to be in a position for there to be trust between the different [intelligence] agencies around the world, and I think that is the basis on which we move forward, so I can assure you there is no cover-up whatsoever.'

The Foreign Office said: 'We reject any accusation that UK security and intelligence officials have been complicit in torture. 'We unreservedly condemn torture and take allegations of mistreatment very seriously.
Mohamed's allegations

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1148900/British-spies-accused- torture-proxy-terror-suspect.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1148900/MI5-colluded-torture-B ritish-terror-suspects-foreign-countries--MPs-told.html

[outsider]

And why is HMG not taking action against these countries that they seem to accept are committing torture? Are their officials forbidden entry? Is HMG pressing the case for trials of the torturers? Are they introducing strong measures to isolate these countries?
And what about Craig Murray's case against HMG, that far from exposing and combatting torture, they try to keep the evidence secret (see 'Death in Samarkand', by Craig Murray, or search web; I recommend you read the excellent, pithy, down-to-earth book)?

And why do our supine MSM allow seductive adverts from these torturing countries (Egypt, Turkey, Morroco, Jordan, to say nothing of the US itself, and of course Israel)?

And our Sheeple flood in droves to soak up the sun in these countries, not being able to equate the smattering of brief mentions in the MSM with what is happening in dungeons a few miles from where they lie on the beaches, or drink themselsevs senseless (or slightly less sensible than they are normally).

And our churchmen do nothing to inform them of their Christian duty to oppose such treatment, and not to support these regimes with their holiday cash (to all of these countries, tourism is a big part of their economy).

[TonyGosling]

MI5 colluded in torture of British terror suspects in foreign countries
headline altered to
British spies accused of 'torture by proxy' of terror suspect
By Ian Drury, Dan Newling and Sam Greenhill
Last updated at 1:20 AM on 19th February 2009

Britain's security services repeatedly colluded in the systematic torture of UK resident Binyam Mohamed, it was claimed last night......



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1148900/British-spies-accused- torture-proxy-terror-suspect.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1148900/MI5-colluded-torture-B ritish-terror-suspects-foreign-countries--MPs-told.html

[outsider]

ICH article on torture:

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article21985.htm

[TonyGosling]

Guantanamo Prisoner: The British Sold Me Out
9:05pm UK, Saturday March 07, 2009

Former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Binyam Mohamed has revealed harrowing details of his alleged torture which brought him close to insanity.

The British resident who was released from the US detention centre in Cuba last month also claimed that British intelligence was complicit in his abuse.



Mr Mohamed said the most gruelling episode of his captivity took place when allegedly held at a secret CIA prison in Kabul in Afghanistan.

"There were loudspeakers in the cell, pumping out what felt like about 160 watts, a deafening volume, non-stop, 24 hours a day. While that was happening, a lot of the time, for hour after hour, they had me shackled," he told the Mail on Sunday.

Ethiopian-born Mr Mohamed lived in London until May 2001 when he left for Afghanistan via Pakistan.

It was obvious the British were feeding them questions about people in London. When I realised that the British were co-operating with the people torturing me, I felt completely naked.

He said he had been moved by the plight of Muslims in Chechnya and wanted to train to become an aid and rescue worker.

The US military claimed he received paramilitary training at an al Qaeda training camp, fought for the Taliban and plotted detonating a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the US.

But Mr Mohamed said: "I would never have taken up arms against British or American soldiers, let alone attacked civilians. I wanted to protect civilians, not kill them."

The 30-year-old claimed he was interrogated by CIA officers and an MI5 officer known as 'John'.

He alleged that interrogators in Morocco started bringing British files to the iinterrogations.

"It was obvious the British were feeding them questions about people in London. When I realised that the British were co-operating with the people torturing me, I felt completely naked," he said.

"It was when they started asking the questions supplied by the British that my situation worsened. They sold me out."

Mr Mohamed said he is now trying to get on with his life and hopes to settle in the UK, saying: "It's the only place I can call home."

A Foreign Office spokesman confirmed that an allegation of possible criminal wrong-doing had been referred to the Attorney General.

He added: "We abhor torture and never order it or condone it. We take allegations of mistreatment seriously and investigate them when they are made."

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said that an investigation into the allegations was "inescapable".

[IanFantom]

Mail Online is calling for a more general enquiry into how the country is run:

[TonyGosling]

UK reportedly knew Britons were tortured in Pakistan
Tue Mar 17, 2009 3:48pm GMT
By William Maclean

LONDON (Reuters) - The government knew two Britons facing criminal charges were tortured in Pakistan but did nothing to stop it, lawyers said on Tuesday, echoing allegations of official complicity in abuse of terrorism suspects overseas.

Reprieve, a UK-based group of human rights lawyers, said Naheem Hussain, 24, and Rehan Zaman, 25, faced the death penalty in Pakistan after being arrested on a visit to the country and tortured to confess to a murder they say they did not commit.

Naheem Hussain's father Fazal, who was arrested along with the pair in 2004, told a news conference in London he and the two were beaten, kicked and hung from ceiling hooks, and British diplomats were aware of the abuse but did nothing to stop it.

"What this case demonstrates is a complete casualness about really vicious torture," Fazal Hussain's local parliamentarian Clare Short said of the response of the British authorities.

She said Britain had failed "to take any action to protect a British citizen subjected to torture to get them to make a false confession to an offence that carries the death penalty."

"Any British person who travels should be very frightened by that...The family have been through hell."

Fazal Hussain, 56, was eventually released in 2005 after being diagnosed with diabetes and jaundice and returned to the UK, where he has launched a campaign for the men's release.

There was no immediate response to email and phoned requests for comment to the Pakistani High Commission (embassy) in London.

Reprieve director Clive Stafford-Smith said the British government had told him it had had instructions from a lawyer hired by the Hussain family to "keep quiet about the torture."

"What we need is a very independent review about how the government could accept (such) a statement ... when it is a criminal offence to cover up evidence of torture," he said.

Stafford-Smith said Britain had a duty to address torture allegations made by its citizens under the U.N. Convention Against Torture and other instruments of international law.

A Foreign Office statement said it had been in touch with Rehan Zaman and Naheem Hussain since their arrest in 2004 and it took any allegations of mistreatment or torture seriously.

"We actively sought their agreement through their legal representatives to raise their allegations with the Pakistani authorities. We were requested by lawyers for the individuals not to pursue this with the Pakistani authorities," it said.

"Without the agreement of the individuals concerned it is UK policy not to follow up allegations of torture or mistreatment with foreign governments."

The British government is under fire separately from rights groups for its refusal to release evidence on the alleged torture of an inmate at the Guantanamo Bay camp, and for its complicity with the United States in the secret detention of terrorism suspects.

(Editing by Charles Dick)

[Thermate911]

Don't hold your breath but

[TonyGosling]

Don't hold your breath. We'll probably have Special Branch investigating MI5 here so they'll be investigating themselves.

Binyam Mohamed: Police are to investigate MI5 over torture allegations
Baroness Scotland QC, the Attorney General, has asked police to investigate MI5 over allegations that they colluded in the torture of British former Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed..........
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/5054961/Binyam-Moh amed-Police-are-to-investigate-MI5-over-torture-allegations.html

[TonyGosling]

This is going ballistic!

MI5 and MI6 face 29 new allegations of torture in foreign prisons
MI5 and MI6 are facing claims that they systematically colluded in the torture of 29 terrorism suspects during interrogation in foreign prisons, it can be disclosed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/510085 2/MI5-and-MI6-face-29-new-allegations-of-torture-in-foreign-prisons.ht ml

[Thermate911]

Interesting glissade (the slippery ice sense :) in that Telegraph article over the results of Operation Crevice.
(FWIW - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Crevice)

I never could get Timothy McVeigh, Robert Mueller & Mete Sosen out of my mind as the Ministry of Sound (c'mon!!) came 'under attack'.

As for the Military Intelligence goons, what else would they be expected to do when they couldn't carve up KGB operatives any longer? There has to be an outlet for 'direct psychopathy' otherwise it dwindles...

hut hut hut

[Thermate911]

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/12/obama-threatens-to-limit-u s-intel-with-brits/

[TonyGosling]

Famous Liar Says Britain Not Complicit In Torture - August 10, 2009

Head of MI6 Sir John Scarlett has come out saying the UK is not complicit in torture. I can tell you from direct personal knowledge that the man is lying.

That is, of course, hardly news. Scarlett was responsible for the dossier on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, which was a tissue of lies from beginning to end. Any sane journalist would treat him with ridicule and opprobrium as one of the most notorious liars in British history. Instead they afford him undue respect.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8188307.stm

Not one of the government's reponses has addressed the irrefutable evidence I gave to the Parliamentary joint committee. The extraordinary thing is that all the meetings I discussed were minuted and the minutes exist in the FCO. I released official documents referring to those meetings. If I were lying, the government would only have to release the minutes. This they refuse to do.

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/08/famous_liar_say.html

[TonyGosling]

Binyam Mohamed ruling is a victory for justice - but now David Miliband censors judges
The High Court last week dealt a humiliating blow to Foreign Secretary David Miliband's attempts to keep secret an official account of the torture of Binyam Mohamed, stating that his arguments had 'no rational basis' in a democracy governed by the rule of law.
The judgment was hailed by campaigners as an historic victory for openness: it is thought to be the first ever to overrule a 'public interest immunity' certificate issued on grounds of national security by a Minister.
In a new twist to the long-running legal saga, it was revealed yesterday that Mr Miliband had been ordered by the court to provide new sworn evidence to justify the Government's insistence that the judgment itself should be censored.
Before the judgment was issued on Friday, Government lawyers claimed that parts of the ruling could damage national security and, for the time being, the court has allowed this.
After the censored version was issued, Mr Miliband's legal team asked for permission to appeal. The judges said it would not be given unless Mr Miliband provided fresh testimony to justify the censorship and if he failed to do so, the judgment would be published in full..........

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1221163/Binyam-Mohamed-ruling- victory-justice--David-Miliband-censors-judges.html#ixzz0UEhICU7C

[TonyGosling]

Britain lurches towards 'secret' justice as judge rules security services can give evidence in closed courts
By James Slack, Home Affairs Editor - 18th November 2009
Britain took another lurch towards 'secret' justice yesterday when it was ruled the State can for the first time withhold evidence from people involved in civil cases.
The decision means claimants will be left unaware of the evidence the police, Government or security services are using to ruin their name or contest a case for damages.
Lawyers described Justice Silber's ruling as a 'constitutional outrage' that overturns 'the whole history of the fundamental principle that both sides must be on an equal footing'.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1229024/Ruling-sees-Britain-st ep-secret-justice-described-constitutional-outrage.html#ixzz0XFrbVGVt

[TonyGosling]

Damning human rights report reveals evidence of UK complicity in torture
'The British know well we do not garland or honour terror suspects', says Pakistan intelligence officer - Tuesday 24 November 2009

The latest evidence that British government officials have been complicit in the torture of British citizens during the so-called "war on terror" has come from the most compelling of sources: the torturers themselves.

For more than a year, researchers from Human Rights Watch have been interviewing members of two notorious Pakistani intelligence agencies, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) about the part they have played in British-led counter-terrorism operations.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/24/evidence-uk-complicity- in-torture

[xmasdale]

Will government investigate compelling torture allegations?

Human Rights Watch Inquiry


Subject: Pressure for inquiry grows as torturers themselves allege British
complicity


- <http://www.guardian.co.uk/>
- <http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics>
- *'Cruel, illegal, immoral': Human Rights Watch condemns UK's role *

Pressure for inquiry grows as torturers themselves allege British
complicity

- Ian Cobain <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/iancobain>
- guardian.co.uk <http://www.guardian.co.uk/>, Tuesday 24 November 2009
20.09 GMT
- Article
history<http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/24/human-rights-uk -role
-torture#history-byline>



Under pressure: attorney general Lady Scotland.

The attorney general was under intense pressure tonight to order a wider
series of police investigations into British complicity in torture <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/torture> after one of the
world's leading human rights <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/human-rights> organisations said there was clear evidence of the UK government's involvement in the torture
of its own citizens.

After an investigation spanning more than a year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) today condemned Britain's role in the torture of terror suspects detained in Pakistan <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/pakistan> as cruel, counter-productive and in clear breach of international law.

Critically, a report published today by HRW - entitled Cruel Britannia:
British Complicity in the Torture and Ill-treatment of Terror Suspects -
draws upon corroborative evidence received from the Pakistani torturers
themselves.

Researchers at the New York-based NGO spoke to Pakistani intelligence agents directly involved in the torture who say their British counterparts knew they were mistreating British terrorism suspects. These agents said British officials were "breathing down their necks for information" while they were torturing a medical student from London, and that British intelligence officers were "grateful" they were "using all means possible" to extract information from a man from Luton being beaten, whipped, deprived of sleep and threatened with an electric drill.

"UK complicity is clear," the report says, adding that it had put the
government in a "legally, morally and politically invidious position".

The attorney general, Lady Scotland, has already asked Scotland Yard to
investigate two alleged cases of British complicity in torture, one
involving Binyam Mohamed, a British resident tortured in Pakistan and
Morocco, and a second involving an unnamed MI6 officer and an alleged victim not identified.

William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said it was vital that Scotland be asked to examine all cases where there is credible evidence of British complicity. "We believe that any credible allegations of UK complicity in torture should be referred to the attorney general to establish whether police investigation is necessary," he said.

"The prime minister made a commitment to do just that. It is up to the
government now to say what it will do in light of the allegations contained
in the report."

The former shadow home secretary David Davis said the report was
"astonishing", in that it "destroys the last remnants of any defence the
government might have". He called on the government to hold an independent judicial inquiry.

HRW added to the growing number of calls for an inquiry into Britain's role
in the torture. Among those issuing demands are parliament's joint committee on human rights, the Liberal Democrats, Amnesty International, and the former director of public prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald. Lord Carlile, the government's independent reviewer of counterterrorism legislation, Lord Guthrie, a former chief of defence staff, and Lord King of Bridgwater, a former Conservative defence and Northern Ireland secretary, have also called for an inquiry.

HRW pointed out todaythat the government may have little choice but to
investigate British complicity, not only because a failure to do so is
threatening to undermine its core values, but because it is a requirement of international law.

"The convention against torture requires states to reinforce the prohibition
against torture through legislative, administrative, judicial and other
measures," the report says.

Privately the Conservatives are aware that they may inherit this problem if
they win the next election.

Asked today whether the government's repeated insistence that it does not
condone, encourage or solicit torture was any longer credible, a Foreign
Office spokesperson replied with the prepared statement: "There is no truth in the more serious suggestion that it is our policy to collude in, solicit
, or even directly participate in abuses of prisoners." Human Rights Watch had not suggested any direct British participation in torture.

The Guardian reported this year that an official government policy, devised to govern British intelligence officers while interrogating people held overseas, resulted in people being tortured, and that Tony Blair, when prime minister, was aware of the existence of this policy.

The Guardian has repeatedly asked Blair about any role he played in
approving the policy, whether he knew that it led to people being tortured,
whether he personally authorised interrogations that took place in
Guantánamo and Afghanistan as well as Pakistan, and whether he made any effort to change the policy. Blair's spokesman responded by saying: "It is completely untrue that Mr Blair has ever authorised the use of torture. He is opposed to it in all circumstances. Neither has he ever been complicit in the use of torture."

When the Guardian pointed out to Blair that it had not suggested that he had authorised the use of torture - as opposed to asking him whether he had authorised a policy that led to people being tortured - and that his
spokesman had not answered the questions that were asked, his spokesman replied: "Tony Blair does not condone torture, has never authorised it nor colluded in it. He continues to think our security services have done and continue to do a crucial and very good job."

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- More on this story
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Damning report reveals evidence of UK
complicity<http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/24/evidence-uk- compl
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Afua Hirsch: Claims are impossible to
ignore<http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/24/human-rights-wat ch-to
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[image: Gallery] How the Guardian broke the
story<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2009/nov/23/torture-mi5- ian-c
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Louise Christian: Will Miliband address
evidence?<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/ nov/2
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Editorial: Complicity in
torture<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/25/editorial- compl
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Related
24 Nov 2009

Claims of UK turning a blind eye to torture impossible to
ignore<http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/24/human-rights-wat ch-to
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24 Nov 2009

Damning human rights report reveals evidence of UK complicity in
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8 Jul 2009

Pakistan torture victims plan legal action to force
inquiry<http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/08/pakistan-tortur e-inq
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8 Jul 2009

David Davis on torture - statement in
full<http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/08/david-davis-tortur e-sta
tement>

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