Officers charged with assaulting terror suspect

Note the Ian Tomlinson hasn't been able to take out 'civil proceedings for compensation', so no change of mind from the CPS in his case.

Simon Clements, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: "Babar Ahmad was arrested by the officers on suspicion of terrorism offences.

Mr Ahmad suffered a number of injuries during that arrest, including heavy bruising to the head, neck, wrists and feet.

"The Crown Prosecution Service received a file of evidence on how those injuries were caused from the Independent Police Complaints Commission in 2004.

"We took the view at that time that there was insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction of anyone involved.

"Following Mr Ahmad's successful civil proceedings for compensation from the police in the High Court last year, his solicitors asked the CPS to look at the evidence again.

"The Director of Public Prosecutions asked the Special Crime Division to do so. We have now completed our review of the evidence.

"Our conclusion is that there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest to charge four of the officers involved in the arrest of Mr Ahmad with causing actual bodily harm to him, contrary to the Offences Against the Person Act 1861."

Independent  12 August 2010    Police State Britain

Torture inquiry judge urged to quit over bias claims

The judge probing torture claims against the security services is facing calls to disqualify himself from the investigation.

A human rights group said Sir Peter Gibson's links to intelligence chiefs meant he should be a witness to the inquiry rather than its chairman.

It claimed the High Court judge's previous posting as the official watchdog over the security services had made him too close to agents, ministers and officials.

David Cameron set up the inquiry earlier this month to discover whether MI5 and MI6 turned a blind eye to the abuse of terrorist suspects in U.S. custody.

But campaign group Reprieve said that Sir Peter has - as Intelligence Services Commissioner - repeatedly exonerated British spies from wrongdoing, despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary.

Former foreign secretary David Miliband revealed earlier this month that Sir Peter has conducted secret probes into the torture claims - the results of which have never been published ...

Daily Mail  20 July 2010

Torture inquiry chairman is 'compromised'

Reprieve

British army's alleged torture of Iraqis goes to judicial review

High court victory for 102 men claiming systemic abuse while in detention may lead to public inquiry ...

The high court today gave permission for a judicial review of the government's failure to hold a public inquiry into the British army's detention policies in Iraq amid allegations that large numbers of civilians were tortured.

The court said it could be argued that "the alleged ill-treatment was systemic, and not just at the whim of individual soldiers".

It went on to criticise the effectiveness of Ministry of Defence proposals to investigate the claims ...

The high court ruling was a victory for lawyers representing 102 men detained after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The abuse they have documented includes 59 allegations of detainees being hooded, 11 of electric shocks, 122 of sound deprivation through the use of ear muffs, 52 of sleep deprivation, 131 of sight deprivation using blackened goggles, 39 of enforced nakedness and 18 allegations that detainees were kept awake by pornographic DVDs played on laptops ...

Guardian  16 July 2010

Guantánamo Bay detainee says interrogation record was blanked

Foreign Office officials 'backed Guantanamo detentions'

Foreign Office officials supported sending British terrorism suspects to Guantanamo Bay, according to documents disclosed in the High Court ...

Tim Otty QC ... told the court that an additional document ... raised questions about Downing Street's involvement in the case of Martin Mubanga ...

Mr Mubanga was arrested in Zambia in 2002 before being taken by US forces to Guantanamo Bay, where he was held for three years.

Mr Otty said: "The PM's office is apparently countermanding a desire of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to intervene on behalf of Mr Mubanga in circumstances where it could have led to his release."

Last week Prime Minister David Cameron appealed to the six former detainees to enter mediation talks, rather than drag the case through the courts.

That offer came as part of his announcement to the House of Commons of a judge-led inquiry into allegations of complicity in torture and extraordinary rendition.

The government has now formally asked the High Court to suspend the men's legal action, saying they hoped the six would enter talks by mid-October.

But lawyers for the men - Bisher al-Rawi, Jamil el Banna, Richard Belmar, Omar Deghayes, Binyam Mohamed and Mr Mubanga - say they will resist settlement talks until they discover more of what the government knew.

BBC NEWS  14 July 2010    Tony Blair

Classified documents reveal UK's role in abuse of its own citizens

Torture inquiry: Tony Blair under pressure to testify

Nicola Duckworth, of Amnesty International, described the prime minister's announcement as "an important first step", but added: "It is not clear the inquiry will have sufficient authority and independence from the executive to ensure the full truth about the UK's involvement in human rights abuses can emerge."

Guardian  07 July 2010

Torture

Torture claims: David Cameron announces inquiry

No prime minister would ever launch an inquiry that would expose how the intelligence and security services work because it would risk damaging their capability to deal with future threats. So don't expect that any intelligence assessments will be made public ...

There will be a report - but what is made public will be a decision for the prime minister.

In essence, this means that nothing will be published that he believes would compromise the secret methods of MI5 and MI6.

BBC NEWS  06 July 2010

Cameron moves to allay US fears on intelligence sharing

Pressure from courts and victims forced government's hand

Cameron announces torture inquiry

Iraq deaths in British custody could see military face legal challenges

MoD faces judicial inquiries as the Guardian raises questions over seven Iraqis who died while being held by UK troops ...

In seven cases raised by the Guardian, the MoD is refusing to explain why the individuals were detained, or say where, how or why they died.

Officials have refused even to disclose whether or not the deaths were investigated.

Next week, lawyers representing 102 Iraqi civilians will seek a judicial review of the MoD's refusal to hold a public inquiry into all cases of abuse of Iraqi civilians after the March 2003 invasion ...

Guardian  01 July 2010    Chilcott Inquiry    Tony Blair

Former minister admits misinforming MPs over treatment of Baha Mousa

Adam Ingram, armed forces minister at time of detainee's killing, blames officials and a 'failure to recollect' for inaccurate information given to parliament ..

Documents, showing that soldiers put a hood on Mousa and other Iraqi detainees under interrogation despite orders not to do so, were released at the inquiry into Mousa's death in the custody of 1 battalion Queen's Lancashire regiment in September 2003.

A paper marked Secret UK Eyes Only showed that Mousa had been in custody for 36 hours and had "spent 23 hours and 40 minutes of this hooded, albeit not continually" ...

Ingram was asked about a parliamentary answer he gave to Kevin McNamara, a senior Labour backbencher on 15 June 2004 about hooding. Ingram said he was "not aware of any evidence in which UK interrogators are alleged to have used hooding as an interrogation technique".

Questioned by Rabinder Singh QC, the inquiry counsel, about the accuracy of his answer, Ingram replied: "It would have been better if the department had reminded me of all the documentation." He added that he was "wholly dependent on the best advice of his department" ...

Guardian  02 June 2010

Baha Mousa

Who killed Baha Mousa?

Fresh torture allegations raised over third British man held in Bangladesh

A third UK citizen has been detained in Bangladesh and allegedly mistreated while being interrogated about his associates and activities in both countries, raising further concerns about possible British complicity in torture.

Faisal Mostafa is said by his lawyers to have been subjected to "physical torture, threats, coercion and intimidation" when he was being questioned about his work for the Muslim Parliament in London, about associates in the UK who had fought as mujahideen in Afghanistan, and about fundraising activities in the UK.

Mostafa ... who was once accused, but cleared, of involvement in al-Qaida's first plot to attack the UK – is said to have been suspended from his wrists and his ankles for long periods, subjected to electric shocks, beaten on the soles of his feet, deprived of food and exposed to bright lights for long periods ...

Guardian  01 June 2010

Torture

Inquiry expected to expose officials who colluded

The judicial inquiry announced by the foreign secretary into Britain's role in torture and rendition since September 2001 is poised to shed extraordinary light on one of the darkest episodes in the country's recent history ...

the inquiry will need to discover:

• Who authorised the bilateral agreements with the US, signed three weeks after the 9/11 attacks under article V of the North Atlantic treaty, that led to the UK offering logistic support for the CIA's rendition programme of kidnap and torture.

• Whether any other such bilateral agreements were signed that led to human rights abuses during the so-called war on terror.

• Who drew up, and who authorised, the secret interrogation policy, transmitted in January 2002 to all MI5 and MI6 agents in Afghanistan, telling them they could interrogate people who were being tortured, as long as they did not participate and were not "seen to condone it".

• How was that policy further developed in mid-2004, why and by whom.

• Which ministers authorised these policies.

• What Downing Street knew about the torture of the British resident Binyam Mohamed, and about the torture in Pakistan and elsewhere of several British citizens suspected of planning terrorist attacks since 2001.

• What the last foreign and home secretaries, David Miliband and Alan Johnson, knew about the UK's involvement in torture and rendition, what they did – and critically, what they may not have done – in an attempt to bring it to an end.

The inquiry will also be under pressure to publish the interrogation policy as it has stood since mid-2004 – even though Miliband said last year that this could never be done as it would "give succour" to the country's enemies ...

Guardian  20 May 2010

Whitehall officials play down torture inquiry expectations

Torture claims investigation ordered by William Hague

MI5 faces allegations over torture of British man in Bangladesh

Security service accused of involvement in abuse of Birmingham businessman Gulam Mustafa, who was arrested in Dhaka ...

Mustafa appeared to have a swollen face when he was paraded before television cameras shortly after his arrest, according to his family.

When he appeared in court 11 days later, a journalist working for the Guardian could see that he was unable to stand throughout the proceedings, at one point sinking to his knees.

The businessman told a British consular official he had been forced to assume stressful positions for long periods during questioning at a detention centre known as the Taskforce for Interrogation Cell, where the use of torture is alleged to be common.

Lawyers for Mustafa's family said there were strong grounds to believe that British officials had been complicit in his mistreatment and they were considering bringing legal action against the government.

They were angry that the UK High Commission in Dhaka had failed to secure consular access to Mustafa for more than two weeks after his arrest or arrange for him to be seen by a doctor ...

Guardian  11 May 2010    War on Terror Log

Guantanamo damages claimants win secrecy ruling

Six former Guantanamo Bay detainees have overturned a ruling that allowed government use of secret evidence to defend itself against a damages claim.

The men had been told that parts of MI5 and MI6's defence could be kept secret.

The men are suing the UK government, saying their detention by the US could have been stopped.

But on Tuesday the Court of Appeal said it would "take a stand" against secrecy that would undermine the "most fundamental principles of common law" ...

BBC NEWS  04 May 2010    War on Terror

Charity launches legal bid to name terror suspect

The charity Reprieve is today launching a legal battle to force the British Government to name a suspected terrorist who is being held in Afghanistan

The man, who Reprieve today said is thought to be Yunus Rahmatullah, was one of two alleged terrorists captured by British soldiers in Iraq in February 2004.

They were handed to the US authorities, who flew them to Afghanistan where it is thought they are being held at Bagram Air Base.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the Data Protection Act prevents it from disclosing their names.

Former shadow home secretary and civil liberties campaigner David Davis said he believed the identities were being kept secret to avoid political embarrassment ...

Independent  15 Apr 2010    War on Terror Log

British military intelligence 'ran renegade torture unit in Iraq'

Fresh evidence has emerged that British military intelligence ran a secret operation in Iraq which authorised degrading and unlawful treatment of prisoners.

Documents reveal that prisoners were kept hooded for long periods in intense heat and deprived of sleep by defence intelligence officers.

They also reveal that officers running the operation claimed to be answerable only "directly to London" ...

In a further email disclosed by the inquiry this week, Major Gavin Davies, a member of the Army's legal team, wrote in March 2003:

"I have just spoken to ... [an army intelligence officer] ... about the subject of placing [prisoners] in hoods in the UK facility ... "

He goes on to say that he was told that hooding is only until "high value" prisoners can be interviewed, and the length of hooding can last from an hour to 24 hours.

The only other restriction, he wrote, "is that they may not sleep". Sleep deprivation is considered torture ...

This is the first time that evidence to support the claims from the British military has emerged. There are now 47 claims of abuse lodged against the Government.

Yesterday Mr Shiner said: "It's been established that JFIT were a separate compound and their personnel were not accountable to a military chain of command.

"There is a mass of evidence from this and other cases which shows JFIT used coercive interrogation techniques – forbidden under law – as standard operating procedure. We need an independent inquiry to examine who was responsible." ...

Independent  21 Mar 2010

Government refuses to publish criticism of new guidelines on overseas torture

The government is locked in a serious and bitter dispute with the parliamentary body set up to monitor MI5 and MI6 over the guidelines covering the torture and abuse of detainees held abroad, the Guardian has learned.

The dispute, compounded by a row about plans for more effective overall scrutiny of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, has added significance since it has been sparked by a group of senior MPs and peers handpicked by the prime minister.

In a surprise move, the government is refusing to publish criticisms of new guidelines on interrogating prisoners, notably terror suspects, drawn up by the intelligence and security committee, the ISC ...

The committee, chaired by the former Foreign Office minister Kim Howells ... has been under fire for being too subservient to the security and intelligence agencies and to the prime minister, who chooses its members and has a veto over what the committee can publish.

However, the Guardian has learned that MPs and peers on the committee – perhaps stung by recent criticism – have expressed serious concern to Gordon Brown about the lack of clarity and "ambiguities" in the guidance for MI5 and MI6 officers operating abroad ...

Guardian  18 Mar 2010

Rove 'proud' of US waterboarding terror suspects

A senior adviser to former US President George W Bush has defended tough interrogation techniques, saying their use helped prevent terrorist attacks.

In a BBC interview, Karl Rove, who was known as "Bush's brain", said he "was proud we used techniques that broke the will of these terrorists".

He said waterboarding, which simulates drowning, should not be considered torture ...

Mr Rove has just written a memoir, Courage and Consequence, in which he defends the two terms of the Bush administration as "impressive, durable and significant".

BBC NEWS  12 Mar 2010    A Violent Aggressive Culture    

'Proud that waterboarding made world safer'

Government attempts to keep torture case secret

Holding case taken by former Guantánamo detainees behind closed doors would set 'very dangerous precedent', says lawyer ...

The government will attempt today to have a case about torture heard entirely behind closed doors in a move that some lawyers say would extend secrecy to a new area of hearings, overriding ancient principles of English law.

This morning a case will come before three appeal judges in London in which seven men are seeking damages against the government for mistreatment during what they say was their "extraordinary rendition" and torture facilitated by the British security services.

The men include former Guantánamo Bay detainees Binyam Mohamed and Moazzam Begg. But the government is seeking to have the case held in secret, less than two weeks after the court of appeal ruled that seven paragraphs of secret evidence in the case of Mohamed should be made public ...

The claimants have never been charged with an offence and are pursuing a claim for a range of civil wrongs including torture, false imprisonment and misfeasance in public office ...

"The government is not seeking to cover up information or relevant material in these cases. Quite the opposite," a Foreign Office spokesperson said.

"We applied for a closed procedure so that the court will be able to fully consider the large volume of relevant material already identified that cannot be disclosed openly without a real risk of causing substantial harm or real damage to the public interest." ...

Guardian  08 Mar 2010

Another mess on Miliband's doorstep

Gordon Brown: Britain is not involved in torture

Mr Brown said that he had spoken to Jonathan Evans, the MI5 director general, to express his gratitude for the work the service did protecting the public.

He also announced that the Government would "shortly" be publishing its revised guidelines for the intelligence agencies on the treatment of detainees held overseas.

"The United Kingdom has the finest intelligence services in the world. I have seen for myself their immense bravery and expertise in our defence," Mr Brown said ...

"We condemn torture without reservation. We do not torture, and we do not ask others to do so on our behalf. We are clear that officials must not be complicit in mistreatment of detainees.

"Wherever serious allegations of potential criminal wrongdoing are made, they are referred to the appropriate authorities."

Mr Brown originally announced last March that he would release the guidance given to intelligence officers and the military on the interrogation of detainees held overseas once it had been reviewed by the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee.

Meanwhile David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, dismissed suggestions that MI5 had lied over its involvement in Mr Mohamed's case ...

Telegraph  26 Feb 2010

MI5 can't be trusted to tell truth, senior judge suggested

Government fury as judges attack security services

Court lifts ban on criticism of MI5

The Court of Appeal has said wording criticising MI5 in a judgement over former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed can be published.

A senior judge had altered the text following protests from government lawyers who saw the draft version.

The Appeal Court now says the robust criticism contained in the original wording should be published "in the interests of open justice".

The foreign secretary has previously denied officials acted unfairly ...

29. In these circumstances,the final version of paragraphs 168 to 170 in my judgment of 10th February 2010 is as follows:

“168. Fourthly, it is also germane that the Security Services had made it clear in March 2005, through a report from the Intelligence and Security Committee, that “they operated a culture that respected human rights and that coercive interrogation techniques were alien to the Services’ general ethics, methodology and training” (paragraph 9 of the first judgment), indeed they “denied that [they] knew of any ill-treatment of detainees interviewed by them whilst detained by or on behalf of the [US] Government” (paragraph 44(ii) of the fourth judgment).

Yet, in this case, that does not seem to have been true: as the evidence showed, some Security Services officials appear to have a dubious record relating to actual involvement, and frankness about any such involvement, with the mistreatment of Mr Mohamed when he was held at the behest of US officials.

I have in mind in particular witness B, but the evidence in this case suggests that it is likely that there were others.

The good faith of the Foreign Secretary is not in question, but he prepared the certificates partly, possibly largely, on the basis of information and advice provided by Security Services personnel.

Regrettably, but inevitably, this must raise the question whether any statement in the certificates on an issue concerning the mistreatment of Mr Mohamed can be relied on, especially when the issue is whether contemporaneous communications to the Security Services about such mistreatment should be revealed publicly.

Not only is there some reason for distrusting such a statement, given that it is based on Security Services’ advice and information, because of previous, albeit general, assurances in 2005, but also the Security Services have an interest in the suppression of such information.

Royal Courts of Justice  26 Feb 2010

BBC NEWS  26 Feb 2010

Home Secretary ... attacks judges over MI5 criticism

Paragraph ... becomes focus of torture row

Top judge speaks out against MI5

Court lifts ban on edited Binyam Mohamed torture documents

Torture collusion probe urged by human rights watchdog

David Davis MP accuses MI5 of 'outsourcing torture'

Binyam Mohamed

MPs want to see interrogation guidance for security services

An influential group of MPs last night demanded the publication of the official interrogation guidance used by the security services at the time of the alleged torture of Britons abroad.

Members of Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights also renewed calls for an independent public inquiry into the allegations of collusion and complicity by intelligence officers in the torture of British nationals first made last August.

Andrew Dismore, chair of the JCHR, said the government-appointed Intelligence and Security Committee must be replaced by a more transparent body that is better equipped to hold the security services to account.

The call followed an unprecedented demand from the Government's own human right's watchdog for an "independent review process" to investigate more than 20 allegations of abuse. The victims claim the illegal detention and torture were condoned by British intelligence officers ...

Independent  21 Feb 2010    Accountability

MI5 may face new torture inquiry

UK called to account over torture allegations

The Government’s own human rights watchdog has demanded a public inquiry into claims that British intelligence agencies were complicit in the torture of more than 20 detainees in the War on Terror, The Times has learnt.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says that it can no longer ignore the growing body of allegations against MI5 and MI6.

The commission’s chairman says in a letter to Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, that the Government’s blanket denials are an inadequate response. Trevor Phillips says: “Not enough has been done to reassure the commission and the public that these allegations are unfounded.”

A dossier of 25 cases has now been built up, including complaints of ill treatment, illegal detention and torture. The EHRC is concerned about mounting evidence that these actions were condoned by British agencies.

Mr Phillips told The Times: “Given the UK’s role as a world leader on human rights, it would be inexplicable for the Government not urgently to put in place an independent review process to assess the truth, or otherwise, of these allegations.”

He also criticised as “inexplicable” a year-long delay by the Government in reporting to the United Nations Committee against Torture ...

Times  20 Feb 2010    Broken Foreign Policy

Mousa inquiry told Colonel condoned hooding

The commander of the regiment whose soldiers were detaining Baha Mousa, an Iraqi civilian, when he died admitted todayhe had condoned practices banned as inhumane 38 years ago.

Colonel Jorge Mendonca also admitted responsibility as commander of 1st Battalion the Queen's Lancashire Regiment for the death in 2003 of the 26-year-old Basra hotel receptionist in his soldiers' custody.

Asked whether he was ultimately accountable for Mousa's death, he said: "As the commanding officer of that unit, yes, I do accept that responsibility."

His admission came near the end of nearly six hours of questioning at the Baha Mousa inquiry in London. However, he said he was unaware of any abuse of Mousa and other Iraqi detainees held by his soldiers, that no medical checks were carried out on them, or that there was no log recording what was happening to them at his regiment's unlocked detention centre.

Gerard Elias QC, the inquiry counsel, referred Mendonca to five techniques – wall-standing, hooding, subjection to noise, deprivation of sleep, and deprivation of food and drink – which were "absolutely forbidden" by the British government in 1972.

Mendonca said he could not remember anything about what was said in army courses about the ban.

"And I'm in quite good company," he added ...

Guardian  15 Feb 2010

Who Killed Baha Mousa?

Ex-officer Mendonca denies knowledge of Iraqi abuse

Baha Mousa case led to end of Jorge Mendonca's glittering army career

The shame of the Baha Mousa inquiry

Baha Mousa Inquiry

Where is the justice for the family of Baha Mousa?

A bloody epitaph to Blair's war

A cry for justice from a good man who expected us to protect his son

Iraqi civilians bring abuse claims to the High Court

Rights law applies to Mousa case

Human rights in Iraq: a case to answer

Our soldiers must not be treated as toys

Colonel 'victim of witch-hunt'

United Kingdom Court Martial acquittals

Wikipedia

Baha Mousa

Iraqi tells of 'beatings'

'Iraqis tortured'

Victims target MI5 chief over torture claims

The head of MI5 is facing growing criticism after it emerged that he was the senior spy responsible for most of the 13 cases involving former terror suspects who are suing the government for alleged torture.

Jonathan Evans was director of MI5’s counter-terrorism branch between 2001 and 2005 — when the British residents claim they were tortured in foreign jails with the collusion of MI5 or MI6.

A lawyer for one of the men said yesterday that Evans was “probably in the frame” for the agency’s policy on torture at the time.

Legal experts say the MI5 director is likely to be called as a witness in some of the legal actions, where issues about the agency’s policy on interrogating suspects may be aired ...

The comments by Evans infuriated Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, which has been involved in some of the legal cases. “The implication is that all of us are enemies of the state — just for trying to find out what happened,” she said.

“Jonathan Evans has an understandable interest in defending the honour of his service. But given his particular counter-terror responsibilities at the crucial time, few will regard him as a neutral commentator.”

One senior MP, who declined to be named because of his close dealings with the intelligence services, agreed: “Is it just a coincidence that Mr Evans was the senior line manager at the time these terror suspects were being questioned?” ...

Times  14 Feb 2010

American spy chiefs alarmed

Binyam Mohamed torture evidence must be revealed, judges rule

Court of appeal ruling compels British government to disclose what MI5 knew of refugee's treatment in Guantánamo Bay ...

Three of Britain's most senior judges have ordered the government to reveal evidence of MI5 complicity in the torture of British resident Binyam Mohamed – unanimously dismissing objections by David Miliband, the foreign secretary.

In a ruling that will cause deep anxiety among the security and intelligence agencies, they rejected Miliband's claims, backed by the US government, that disclosure of a seven-paragraph summary of classified CIA information showing what British agents knew of Mohamed's torture would threaten intelligence sharing between London and Washington, and therefore endanger Britain's national security.

One of the key paragraphs states that there "could readily be contended to be at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of Binyam Mohamed by the United States authorities".

The judges – Sir Igor Judge, the lord chief justice; Lord Neuberger, the master of the rolls; and Sir Anthony May, president of the Queen's Bench – shattered the convention that the courts should not question claims by the executive relating to national security.

In damning references to claims made by Miliband and his lawyers, and stressing the importance of the media in supporting the principle of open justice, they said the case raised issues of "fundamental importance", of "democratic accountability and ultimately the rule of law itself" ...

Guardian  10 Feb 2010

American spy chiefs alarmed

MI5 and Whitehall accused of torture 'cover-up'

Binyam Mohamed ruling a 'tactical retreat'

Court orders release of Binyam torture papers

Seven paragraphs

Master of the Rolls condemned MI5

Government persuaded Lord Neuberger to delete damning references to MI5

Timeline

David Miliband attacks 'irresponsible' judges

Britain 'complicit in mistreatment and possible torture' says UN

United Nations human rights investigators have concluded that the British government has been complicit in the mistreatment and possible torture of several of its own citizens during the "war on terror".

In a report published today that will make difficult reading for ministers who repeatedly denied the UK's involvement in torture, UN officials have indicated that there is clear evidence of the UK's role in the secret detention overseas of several British Muslims.

The officials say that such secret imprisonment – or "proxy detentions" – not only facilitates torture, but may amount to torture in its own right. In one starkly worded passage, they warn that if a state's use of proxy detention had been systematic or widespread it would amount to a "crime against humanity" ...

Listing those cases in which they conclude that a state has been complicit in a secret detention, the authors highlight "the United Kingdom in the cases of several individuals, including Binyam Mohamed, Salahuddin Amin, Zeeshan Siddiqui, Rangzieb Ahmed and Rashid Rauf".

Ahmed, 34, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, was detained in Pakistan in 2006. MPs have heard that after evidence of his terrorist offences had been gathered he was allowed to fly from Manchester to Islamabad, and that MI6 then suggested to a notorious Pakistani intelligence agency that its officers should detain him as he was a dangerous terrorist.

After MI5 and Greater Manchester police drew up a list of questions to be put to Ahmed, the Pakistani agents who were questioning him ripped out a number of his fingernails. Ahmed alleges he was also beaten, whipped and deprived of sleep. He was later deported to the UK, tried and convicted of terrorism offences and is now serving a life sentence at Full Sutton prison near York ...

Guardian  27 Jan 2010

US agency co-operating with Palestinian counterparts who allegedly torture Hamas supporters in West Bank ...

Less than a year after Barack Obama signed an executive order that prohibited torture and provided for the lawful interrogation of detainees in US custody, evidence is emerging the CIA is co-operating with security agents whose continuing use of torture has been widely documented by human rights groups.

The relationship between the CIA and the two Palestinian agencies involved – Preventive Security Organisation (PSO) and General Intelligence Service (GI) – is said by some western diplomats and other officials in the region to be so close that the American agency appears to be supervising the Palestinians' work.

One senior western official said: "The [Central Intelligence] Agency consider them as their property, those two Palestinian services." A diplomatic source added that US influence over the agencies was so great they could be considered "an advanced arm of the war on terror" ...

At the heart of the international effort is the creation of the Palestinian national security force, a 7,500-strong gendarmerie trained by US, British, Canadian and Turkish army officers under the command of a US general, Keith Dayton.

Many Palestinians blame Dayton for the mistreatment of Hamas sympathisers, although the general's remit does not extend to either of the intelligence agencies responsible ...

Guardian  17 December 2009

The attorney general was under intense pressure tonight to order a wider series of police investigations into British complicity in torture after one of the world's leading 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 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 ...

Guardian  24 November 2009

UK complicity in torture in Pakistan

HRW

An announcement this week of a new public inquiry into fresh allegations of torture against British troops will heap further pressure on the British Army and the Government regarding abuse in Iraq.

The Defence Secretary, Bob Ainsworth, will tell the Commons on Wednesday that the new inquiry will focus on the Battle of Danny Boy, which took place in May 2004 and involved soldiers from the Argyll and Southern Highlanders and the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment.

Families claim that some of 20 insurgents killed at Majar al-Kabir were abused before they died, making it more difficult for ministers to continue to insist torture was not routinely carried out by British soldiers during the six-year conflict ...

Independent  22 November 2009

Army faces inquiry over ‘Battle of Danny Boy’ torture claims

An Italian judge has convicted 23 Americans - all but one of them CIA agents - and two Italian secret agents for the 2003 kidnap of a Muslim cleric.

The agents were accused of abducting Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, known as Abu Omar, from Milan and sending him to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured.

The trial, which began in June 2007, is the first involving the CIA's so-called "extraordinary rendition" programme.

The Obama administration has expressed its disappointment at the convictions.

"We are disappointed by the verdicts," state department spokesman Ian Kelly said in Washington.

He declined to comment further pending a written opinion from the judge, but said an appeal was likely.

Three Americans and five Italians were acquitted by the court in Milan.

The Americans were all tried in their absence as they have not been extradited from the US to Italy.

The CIA's Milan station chief at the time, Robert Lady, was given an eight-year term, while the other 22 Americans convicted - one of them a US air force colonel - were sentenced to five years in prison.

Lawyers for the 23 Americans said they would appeal against their convictions.

The two Italian agents, who were convicted as accomplices to kidnapping, were given three-year prison terms.

The court also ruled that those convicted must pay 1m euros ($1.5m) in damages to Abu Omar and 500,000 euros to his wife.

CIA spokesman George Little in Washington declined to comment on the convictions, telling the Associated Press news agency: "The CIA has not commented on any of the allegations surrounding Abu Omar."

Italian prosecutors said Abu Omar was taken as part of a series of extraordinary renditions carried out by the CIA - when terror suspects were moved between countries without any public legal process ...

Activist group Human Rights Watch welcomed the verdict, saying it sent "a strong signal of the crimes committed by the CIA in Europe".

Spokeswoman Joanne Mariner said: "For us, this first case puts the war on terror on trial."

BBC NEWS  04 November 2009

Jonathan Evans, the Director General of MI5, has issued a powerful defence of Britain's co-operation with intelligence agencies in America and other countries accused of the abuse and torture of detainees, saying they had stopped "many attacks" in the aftermath of the September 11 2001 strikes.

Speaking for the first time about charges of MI5 complicity in the abuse of suspects overseas, Mr Evans said Britain had had to get overseas help at the time as its own knowledge of al Qaeda was inadequate and al Qaeda might have hit again "imminently".

MI5 would have failed in its duty if it had not worked with its overseas connections to safeguard Britain ...

Times  16 October 2009

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, today admitted that MI6 had referred "a case" to the attorney general, involving complicity in torture by one of its agents operating abroad.

In a letter to the shadow foreign secretary, Miliband reveals little else, except that the torture happened in an undisclosed foreign country; and unlike the tranche of recent cases where MI5 agents have been accused of complicity in torture, the victim in this case was not a UK national, or a UK resident ...

Just as the US military attempted to blame the systematic abuse at Abu Ghraib on a few "bad apples" acting beyond their orders, the British government appears to be trying to ringfence the rising tide of evidence of its complicity in torture abroad.

To refer an individual agent for investigation by the attorney general conveniently places the blame squarely on the shoulders of a subordinate, and keeps people higher up the chain, including government ministers, out of the picture.

If there is one thing we should have learned from the various official reports and documents that have been released since Obama took office, it is that the abuse that has taken place in the name of "counter-terror" in the past eight years was anything but the actions of a few rogue agents.

Rather, in the US at least, the torture was institutionalised. We now know that techniques such as almost drowning people, slamming their heads against walls and staging mock executions were operational norms in US prisons abroad. We also know that the torture programme was systematic, ordered from the top, and that it involved professionals – doctors, psychologists and lawyers ...

Guardian 11 September 2009

Doctors and psychologists the CIA employed to monitor its "enhanced interrogation" of terror suspects came close to, and may even have committed, unlawful human experimentation, a medical ethics watchdog has alleged.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a not-for-profit group that has investigated the role of medical personnel in alleged incidents of torture at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and other US detention sites, accuses doctors of being far more involved than hitherto understood.

PHR says health professionals participated at every stage in the development, implementation and legal justification of what it calls the CIA's secret "torture programme".

The American Medical Association, the largest body of physicians in the US, said it was in open dialogue with the Obama administration and other government agencies over the role of doctors. "The participation of physicians in torture and interrogation is a violation of core ethical values," it said.

The most incendiary accusation of PHR's latest report, Aiding Torture, is that doctors actively monitored the CIA's interrogation techniques with a view to determining their effectiveness, using detainees as human subjects without their consent. The report concludes that such data gathering was "a practice that approaches unlawful experimentation".

Human experimentation without consent has been prohibited in any setting since 1947, when the Nuremberg Code, which resulted from the prosecution of Nazi doctors, set down 10 sacrosanct principles ...

PHR is calling for an official investigation into the role of doctors in the CIA's now widely discredited programme. It wants to know exactly how many doctors participated, what they did, what records they kept and the science that they applied.

Guardian  02 September 2009

Physicians for Human Rights

C.I.A. Abuse Cases Detailed in Report on Detainees

Report Shows Tight CIA Control on Interrogations

C.I.A. Interrogation Tapes

C.I.A. Interrogations

Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen were military retirees and psychologists, on the lookout for business opportunities. They found an excellent customer in the Central Intelligence Agency, where in 2002 they became the architects of the most important interrogation program in the history of American counterterrorism.

They had never carried out a real interrogation, only mock sessions in the military training they had overseen. They had no relevant scholarship; their Ph.D. dissertations were on high blood pressure and family therapy. They had no language skills and no expertise on Al Qaeda.

But they had psychology credentials and an intimate knowledge of a brutal treatment regimen used decades ago by Chinese Communists. For an administration eager to get tough on those who had killed 3,000 Americans, that was enough ...

In the next few weeks, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is expected to decide whether to begin a criminal torture investigation, in which the psychologists’ role is likely to come under scrutiny.

The Justice Department ethics office is expected to complete a report on the lawyers who pronounced the methods legal. And the C.I.A. will soon release a highly critical 2004 report on the program by the agency’s inspector general ...

NYT  12 August 2998

Ministers must explain why crucial documents relating to CIA "torture flights" that stopped on sovereign British territory were destroyed, a panel of MPs has said.

A damning appraisal by the influential foreign affairs select committee on Britain's role in the rendition of terror suspects and alleged complicity of torture condemns the government's lack of transparency on vital areas of concern.

In particular, the MPs, in a report released today, call for an explanation for the missing papers, which might explain the role of Diego Garcia, the British overseas territory, in the US's "extraordinary rendition" programme.

The report says: "We recommend that the government discloses how, why and by whom the records relating to flights through Diego Garcia since the start of 2002 were destroyed." ...

Observer 09 August 2009

Ministers deny 'policy to collude in torture'

Ministers' admission links MI5 and MI6 to 'torture victim'

Scarlett, author of the Iraq war dossier, is knighted

Intelligence from torture 'can save lives'

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, personally intervened to suppress evidence of CIA collusion in the torture of a British resident, the high court heard today.

The dramatic turn emerged as lawyers for Binyam Mohamed, the UK resident abused in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Morocco and Guantánamo Bay, joined by lawyers for the Guardian and other media groups, asked the court to order the disclosure of CIA material.

It consists of a seven-paragraph summary of what the CIA knew, and what it told MI5 and MI6, about the treatment of Mohamed. Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones, the judges hearing the case, have said that the summary contains nothing that could possibly be described as "highly sensitive classified US intelligence".

However, David Miliband, the foreign secretary, has repeatedly told the court that the US would stop sharing intelligence with the UK if the CIA material was published ...

The court was also provided with a 35-page MI5 document – of which all but three are blacked out – relating to its instructions to one of its officers in 2002.

Nevertheless, the document shows that the officer, known in the case as Witness B, was sent a list of detailed questions to ask Mohamed, including about his acquaintances in London ...

Guardian  29 July 2009

MPs and peers call for inquiry into torture

MPs, peers urge torture inquiry

MI5 torture inquiry could damage UK security

The true depth of British involvement in the torture of terrorism suspects overseas and the manner in which that complicity is concealed behind a cloak of courtroom secrecy was laid bare last night when David Davis MP detailed the way in which one counter-terrorism operation led directly to a man suffering brutal mistreatment.

In a dramatic intervention using the protection of parliamentary privilege, the former shadow home secretary revealed how MI5 and Greater Manchester police effectively sub-contracted the torture of Rangzieb Ahmed to a Pakistani intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), whose routine use of torture has been widely documented.

This is the first time that the information has entered the public domain. Previously it has been suppressed through the process of secret court hearings and, had the Guardian or other media organisations reported it, they would have exposed themselves to the risk of prosecution for contempt of court ...

Guardian 08 July 2009

David Davis MP accuses MI5 of 'outsourcing torture'

The security service MI5 is being accused of attempting to pervert the course of justice by offering a man inducements to drop his allegation that its officers colluded in his torture.

Rangzieb Ahmed had three of his fingernails ripped out after MI5 and Greater Manchester police (GMP) drew up a list of questions for officers from a notorious Pakistani intelligence agency who had detained him in Pakistan. He was later deported to the UK and jailed for terrorism offences.

Ahmed says he was visited in prison by an MI5 officer and a police officer who offered to secure a reduction in his sentence or a payment of money to withdraw his torture complaints when his appeal against conviction is heard later this year. His lawyers have written to the Crown Prosecution Service to complain that the approach was "grossly inappropriate" and amounted to an attempt to pervert the course of justice.

As well as lodging an appeal against his conviction, Ahmed is also suing the British government for damages arising out of his treatment in Pakistan. It is thought that his lawyers are planning to rely to some extent on a judgment made after legal argument that preceded his trial, the full details of which are being kept secret at the request of MI5 and GMP ...

Guardian 07 July 2009

Tortured with pliers

The policy, devised in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, offered guidance to MI5 and MI6 officers questioning detainees in Afghanistan whom they knew were being mistreated by the US military.

British intelligence officers were given written instructions that they could not "be seen to condone" torture and that they must not "engage in any activity yourself that involves inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners".

But they were also told they were not under any obligation to intervene to prevent detainees from being mistreated ...

The policy almost certainly breaches international human rights law, according to Philippe Sands QC, one of the world's leading experts in the field, because it takes no account of Britain's obligations to avoid complicity in torture under the UN convention against torture ...

Blair indicated his awareness of the existence of the policy in the middle of 2004, a few weeks after publication of photographs depicting the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq ...

... the discovery that Blair was aware of the secret interrogation policy appears certain to fuel the growing demand for an independent inquiry into aspects of the UK's role in torture and rendition ...

Guardian 18 June 2009

According to Rahman, whose lawyers believe they have enough evidence to start civil proceedings against home secretary Jacqui Smith, two masked men of European origin were present – and appeared to be directing events – when he was seized from the home of his Bangladeshi wife on 1 December 2005 and taken to a cell in an office of the Bangladeshi intelligence services, where he was held for three weeks.

Rahman said he was "stripped, beaten and told that his wife would be raped and murdered and her body burned" and made to record a number of false confessions, including a statement that he had masterminded the terrorist attacks in London on 7 July 2005.

What makes Rahman's claims particularly disturbing are his reports about the behaviour of two MI5 agents, who, he said, responded to his complaints that he had been tortured and had made false confessions, by saying, "They haven't done a very good job on you," and adding, "That's good, you've learned your lesson," when interrogations resumed after further abuse.

In this period, when, he says, his passport was taken away and he was told to stay in his wife's village and to talk to no one abut his experiences, he was regularly summoned for further interrogations, at which MI5 officials were present, and was shown hundreds of photographs, including those of friends in the UK, and asked to identify them. Rahman claims that if he did not co-operate, the two British officers would leave the room and he would then be beaten ...

Guardian 27 May 2009

UK minister faces 'torture' writ

MI5 faces fresh torture allegations

Tortured while MI5 left the room

C.I.A. interrogators used waterboarding, the near-drowning technique that top Obama administration officials have described as illegal torture, 266 times on two key prisoners from Al Qaeda, far more than had been previously reported.

The C.I.A. officers used waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002 against Abu Zubaydah, according to a 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum. Abu Zubaydah has been described as a Qaeda operative.

A former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, told ABC News and other news media organizations in 2007 that Abu Zubaydah had undergone waterboarding for only 35 seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew.

The 2005 memo also says that the C.I.A. used waterboarding 183 times in March 2003 against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks ...

The Senate Intelligence Committee has begun a yearlong, closed-door investigation of the C.I.A. interrogation program, in part to assess claims of Bush administration officials that brutal treatment, including slamming prisoners into walls, shackling them in standing positions for days and confining them in small boxes, was necessary to get information.

The fact that waterboarding was repeated so many times may raise questions about its effectiveness, as well as about assertions by Bush administration officials that their methods were used under strict guidelines.

A footnote to another 2005 Justice Department memo released Thursday said waterboarding was used both more frequently and with a greater volume of water than the C.I.A. rules permitted ...

NYT 19 April 2009

Criminal proceedings have begun in Spain against six senior officials in the Bush administration for the use of torture against detainees in Guantánamo Bay.

Baltasar Garzón, the counter-terrorism judge whose prosecution of General Augusto Pinochet led to his arrest in Britain in 1998, has referred the case to the chief prosecutor before deciding whether to proceed ...

"The only route of escape the prosecutor might have is to ask whether there is ongoing process in the US against these people," Boyé told the Observer. "This case will go ahead. It will be against the law not to go ahead."

The officials named in the case include the most senior legal minds in the Bush administration. They are: Alberto Gonzales, a former White House counsel and attorney general; David Addington, former vice-president Dick Cheney's chief of staff; Douglas Feith, who was under-secretary of defence; William Haynes, formerly the Pentagon's general counsel; and John Yoo and Jay Bybee, who were both senior justice department legal advisers ...

Observer 29 March 2009

The attorney general is to be asked to investigate two more cases of alleged MI5 complicity in torture of men detained in Pakistan.

Lawyers representing Rangzieb Ahmed and Salahuddin Amin are to ask Lady Scotland to consider possible criminal wrongdoing ...

There are also reports that MI5 and MI6 have admitted there are other cases in which their officers raised concerns about the possible torture of detainees in US custody in Afghanistan during the conflict that followed the 9/11 attacks.

Citing "security sources", today's Daily Telegraph reports that "senior officials in both MI5 and MI6 have reviewed their files and fear that 15 similar cases could also lead to police investigations" ...

Guardian 28 March 2009

Torture inquiry reveals 15 new cases

The government admitted today that British troops in Iraq handed over terror suspects to the US, which then secretly rendered them to a prison in Afghanistan.

After a year of allegations and repeated ministerial assurances to the contrary, the admission was made in the Commons by John Hutton, the defence secretary, who apologised to MPs for inaccurate information ministers had previously given them.

He said British soldiers, believed to have been SAS troops, handed over two terrorist suspects to the US in Iraq in February 2004. The men had been captured outside the UK-controlled zone covering south-eastern Iraq.

Hutton said the pair, believed to be Pakistanis, were still being held in Afghanistan. He said they were members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a banned organisation that he said was linked to al-Qaida. The US had assured Britain the two continued to represent "significant security concerns" and it was "neither possible or desirable to transfer them to either their country of detention or country of origin", Hutton told MPs ...

Guardian 26 February 2009

A shocking new report alleges widespread complicity between British security agents and their Pakistani counterparts who have routinely engaged in the torture of suspects.

In the study, which will be published next month by the civil liberties group Human Rights Watch, at least 10 Britons are identified who have been allegedly tortured in Pakistan and subsequently questioned by UK intelligence officials. It warns that more British cases may surface and that the issue of Pakistani terrorism suspects interrogated by British agents is likely to "run much deeper" ...

Observer 22 February 2009

Revealed: full horror of Gitmo inmate's beatings

We need more than fine words on torture

Future historians should perhaps turn to court rulings, rather than parliamentary debates or political speeches, to discover how government worked in the opening years of the 21st century.

At their best, they expose the shallowness of public promises and the compromises made necessary by power.

Yesterday's high court ruling on the case of Binyam Mohamed does this in spades, venturing into one of the nastier and illegal corners of George Bush's self-defeating war on terror.

It reveals that the foreign secretary faced something approaching international blackmail last year, when the United States threatened to cut off intelligence cooperation if Britain published secret information that showed a terror suspect had been tortured.

It also finds that David Miliband's unhappy response, to block publication using a public interest immunity certificate, was, given the American threats, and the implications for national security, legal ...

The judges argued that it was in their view "difficult to conceive that a democratically elected and accountable government could possibly have any rational objection to placing into the public domain such a summary of what its own officials reported, as to how a detainee was treated by them" ...

The government argues that the proper place for investigation is the secret Intelligence and Security Committee – but this inadequate body looked the other way when it examined the Mohamed case in 2007.

The ruling reveals the extraordinary fact that it did not even occur to its members that America might ever torture suspects. Its annual reports, the latest now overdue, are censored.

Its current and previous chairs were both Foreign Office ministers – chosen to monitor decisions for which they were once responsible ...

Guardian 05 February 2009

Evidence of torture 'buried by ministers'

Detainee brother feels 'betrayed'

Guantanamo man in plea to Brown

Justice under pressure

Judge asks media ...

US warning to court ...

5 Myths About Torture

On Torture ...

Profile: Binyam Mohamed

Youthful foreign secretary David Miliband, just a year ago the pin-up boy of New Labour, is discovering just how nasty real politics can be.

He’s having to defend the US decision to prevent two British judges, Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones, from releasing information about the torture of British subject Binyam Mohamed.

The judges say they wanted to release details of the torture in the interest of safeguarding the rule of law, free speech and democratic accountability (all those things New Labourites like Miliband are supposed to believe in).

The US has said, forget all that, if you let everybody know what we’ve been doing we’ll stop sharing our intelligence with you, which, according to the judges, would increase the terrorist danger to the UK. So the aforementioned information is staying under wraps.

This, as Tory MP and former shadow home secretary David Davis points out, is an outrageous intervention in UK democratic business.

The boy Miliband, however, denies it’s any such thing, claiming that “it is for the US to decide when to publish their information” (about torturing UK citizens) and the UK has “never condoned the use of torture.” ...

Blatherskite 04 February 2009

CIA Played Larger Role In Advising Pentagon

Pentagon 'was warned over interrogation methods'

White House Torture Advisers

Laws Didn't Apply to Interrogators

5 Myths About Torture and Truth

House Passes Bill to Ban CIA's Use of Harsh Interrogation Tactics

Call It the Abu Ghraib Memo

We Tortured and We'd Do It Again

Blair's lies and linguistic manipulations

Art, truth and politics