UK & Torture

[Vikrant]

UK too was involved in torture of Muslim detainees.

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References to Britain’s intelligence agencies were deleted at their request from the damning US report on the CIA’s use of torture after 9/11, it has emerged.

A spokesman for David Cameron acknowledged the UK had been granted deletions in advance of the publication, contrasting with earlier assertions by No 10. Downing Street said any redactions were only requested on “national security” grounds and contained nothing to suggest UK agencies had participated in torture or rendition.

However, the admission will fuel suspicions that the report – while heavily critical of the CIA – was effectively sanitised to conceal the way in which close allies of the US became involved in the global kidnap and torture programme that was mounted after the al-Qaida attacks.

On Wednesday, the day the report was published, asked whether redactions had been sought, Cameron’s official spokesman told reporters there had been “none whatsoever, to my knowledge”.

However, on Thursday, the prime minister’s deputy official spokesman said: “My understanding is that no redactions were sought to remove any suggestion that there was UK involvement in any alleged torture or rendition. But I think there was a conversation with the agencies and their US counterparts on the executive summary. Any redactions sought there would have been on national security grounds in the way we might have done with any other report.”

The two main cases relevant to the involvement of Britain’s spying agencies related to Binyam Mohamed, a UK citizen tortured and secretly flown to Guantánamo Bay, and the abduction of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and Sami-al-Saadi, two prominent Libyan dissidents, and their families, who were flown to Tripoli in 2004 where they were tortured by Muammar Gaddafi’s secret police.

There is no reference at all in the Senate’s 500-page summary report to UK intelligence agencies or the British territory of Diego Garcia used by the US as a military base. But the executive summary contained heavy redactions throughout, prompting speculation that references to US allies has been erased.

...

US hid UK links in CIA torture report at request of British spy agencies US news The Guardian

 

[Vikrant]

Is this speck in the Indian Ocean Britain's Guantanamo? Chilling questions raised over secretive island as more disturbing allegations emerge over UK's role in CIA torture

Read more: Is this speck in the Indian Ocean Britain s Guantanamo Chilling questions raised over secretive island as more disturbing allegations emerge over UK s role in CIA torture Daily Mail Online
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

 

[jwoodie]

The U.S. Senate's "report" is nothing more than sour grapes by the Democrats for losing the last election.

 

[theHawk]

Can you give an example of how a captured Islamist terrorist was "tortured"?

 

[Vikrant]

Tony Blair and his former foreign secretary Jack Straw could be summoned before a parliamentary inquiry in an attempt to determine the extent of any British involvement in torture of terror suspects.

The two senior figures from the last Labour government may be asked to give evidence to the intelligence and security committee (ISC) in the wake of the publication of a US Senate report confirming that the CIA used brutal and ineffective methods after 9/11.

However, pressure is growing on the government to announce a separate, judge-led inquiry, amid concerns that the ISC is too closely associated with the Westminster establishment.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the ISC chairman and a Conservative former foreign secretary, said on Sunday he would investigate “without fear or favour” regardless of whether it might embarrass the security services, ministers or Whitehall.

He said his committee would not shy away from saying that the evidence pointed towards the possibility of prosecutions if it thought that was appropriate.

Asked on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show whether senior figures from the last government such as Blair and Straw could be asked to give evidence, Rifkind replied: “Certainly we would request any former minister or serving minister who has a contribution to make to our inquiries, to give evidence. If they refuse to do so that itself would imply they had something to hide. So we’ll have to wait and see what happens.”

He said no decisions had yet been taken about who would be called as witnesses. It was reported over the weekend that Straw was questioned by police as a witness in 2012 over allegations that British MI6 agents were involved in the renditions of Libyans back to the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, where they were subsequently mistreated. The police inquiries are expected to conclude within the next few months, enabling the ISC to start investigating the allegations as its top priority.

Speaking on the same programme, Alan Johnson, the Labour former home secretary, said he had found “no evidence of British agents being involved” in torture or rendition during his time in government, but Blair and Straw should appear before the ISC if they were asked.

As the ISC struggles to defend its credibility as the right body to investigate, Rifkind also promised on Sunday that he would ask the US Senate intelligence committee to hand over secret material redacted from their report at the request of the UK.

Despite Rifkind’s reassurances, senior politicians from across the parties – including the Tory former cabinet ministers Dominic Grieve and Andrew Mitchell – have now backed calls for an independent judge-led inquiry into British involvement in torture after the police investigations have finished. Even the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has said her instinct is that an independent inquiry is needed, despite the fact that it would examine events that took place under the last Labour government.

Critics fear that the ISC is compromised by the facts that it is largely composed of establishment figures, that its meetings are mainly conducted in secret and that its reports are subject to redactions by the government. It will not compel witnesses to give evidence, and those who do so are not speaking under oath.

One of the ISC’s biggest critics is Norman Baker, the Lib Dem former Home Office minister, who said it had “not really delivered the goods” in the past. He said the investigation needed to get to the bottom of the scandal before the UK considered renewing its contract with the US for the lease of the Diego Garcia airbase, which has been used at least twice for the rendition of terror suspects.

On Monday Theresa May, the home secretary, will face questioning about the extent of her contact with the Senate committee and whether she personally lobbied for any redactions. There have been more than 20 meetings between the committee and UK government representatives, fuelling speculation about a campaign to keep mention of UK agencies out of the final report.

May could also be asked about comments made by a former Home Office minister, Lord West, who suggested on Friday that British agents could have been in the same building at the time US operatives were torturing suspects.

The ISC took on the job of investigating the torture of detainees after Sir Peter Gibson, a retired judge, was frustrated in his inquiry because two police investigations had been launched into the rendition of detainees to Libya.

In an interim report, Gibson said he had not found any evidence of British agents themselves undertaking torture, but he raised 27 serious questions that had not been answered about their potential involvement in what the CIA was doing. These included whether the two intelligence agencies were willing to “condone, encourage or take advantage of rendition operations” mounted by others.

The government has appeared lukewarm so far about reviving the Gibson inquiry, saying it will wait and see what the ISC finds before ordering another investigation.

David Cameron has said the UK has dealt with the issue of complicity in torture and the problems date back more than a decade to the period just after 9/11 during Blair’s second term as prime minister.

Meawnhile, a top official from Romania has for the first time confirmed that the CIA had “at least” one prison in the country. Ioan Talpes, a former head of the country’s intelligence service, said the CIA had “centres” in Romania, including a transit camp or compound, where prisoners were kept before being moved to other locations.

He is the first Romanian official to confirm information in the CIA torture report last week about the existence of at least one “black site” in which prisoners were held and probably tortured.

UK torture inquiry could summon Blair and Straw Law The Guardian

 

[theHawk]

There was no "CIA torture report". The documents released by mostly Senate Democrats was nothing but a political stunt to rally their rabid base. The people who wrote the report never even spoke to the people that ran the program.

“I’m bemused that the Senate could devote so many resources to studying the interrogation program and yet never once speak to any of the key people involved in it, including the guy who ran it (that would be me).” --Jose Rodriguez Jr

 

[Vikrant]

The UN Convention against torture defines it as "deliberately inflicting severe physical or mental pain or suffering" for reasons such as obtaining information or punishment. But countries rarely accept that their own interrogation techniques, however harsh, amount to torture, writes Dr Frank Foley.

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BBC News - Why it s so rare to hear an apology for torture

 

[Coyote]

The U.S. Senate's "report" is nothing more than sour grapes by the Democrats for losing the last election.

Torture isn't "sour grapes".