[DEBATE] : UK - Ministers refuse to answer torture questions

[Riaz Tayob]

[Amazing a "fair trial" by European standards now means that tortured
victims can be successfully prosecuted... will wonders never cease -
at least the Americans are brazen enough to call it military
justice.... the "good old days" of the rack of thumbscrews are back
again... ]

Ministers refuse to answer torture questions

• Miliband and Smith snub human rights committee
• MPs want head of MI5 to explain conduct of officers

    * Ian Cobain
    * The Guardian, Saturday 28 February 2009
    * Article history

David Miliband and Jacqui Smith have both refused to appear before
Parliament's human rights committee to answer questions about
allegations of British collusion in the torture of British citizens
and residents detained during counter-terrorism operations in
Pakistan.

In a move that dismayed members of the Joint Committee on Human Rights
(JCHR), a joint letter from the foreign secretary and home secretary
is also said to have failed to answer any of the eight questions that
the committee asked about legal provisions offering MI5 officers
immunity in the UK for crimes committed overseas. The JCHR is now
asking Jonathan Evans, the director-general of MI5, to appear before
it to be questioned about the agency's policy and the conduct of his
officers.

MPs and peers on the committee are also expected to demand again that
Miliband and Smith answer their questions, while its chairman, Andrew
Dismore, says the ministers' refusal may trigger demands for an
independent inquiry into the allegations. Dismore said it was "deeply
disappointing" that neither minister had agreed to appear before the
committee, but added: "This inquiry isn't over yet." He said MPs may
wish to consider an independent inquiry modelled along the lines of
one held in Canada, which examined official collusion in the US
rendition programme and recommended changes in the supervision of
Canadian intelligence services. "We don't want to hang people out to
dry, this isn't about pointing the finger, but we do want to get at
the truth," Dismore said. "If people have been tortured, we can't
untorture them, but we can make recommendations about how this can be
avoided in the future."

The JCHR opened its inquiry after hearing evidence from the Guardian,
which has been investigating allegations that British intelligence
officers have colluded in the torture of terrorism suspects, and Human
Rights Watch, which says the allegations have been confirmed by
officials in the UK and Pakistan. Tom Porteous, London director of
Human Rights Watch, said yesterday of Miliband and Smith: "What are
they afraid of? There are serious questions here about allegations of
UK involvement in torture. The ministers are really inviting
speculation that the UK government has something to hide." A number of
suspects have been questioned by British intelligence officials,
including MI5 officers, after periods of alleged torture by
interrogators from Pakistan's notorious Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI) Directorate.

According to evidence heard at the high court during proceedings
brought on behalf of Binyam Mohamed, the British resident who was
freed from Guantanamo Bay last week, an interrogation policy which
subsequently led to detainees being tortured in Pakistan was devised
by MI5 lawyers and figures in government.

Last year Manchester Crown Court heard that MI5 and Greater Manchester
police passed questions to ISI officers so that they could be put to
Rangzieb Ahmed, 35, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, after he was
detained in Pakistan in August 2006. A judge later ruled that Ahmed
was being illegally detained in inhumane conditions at the time and
was possibly being subjected to sleep deprivation.

By the time Ahmed was deported to the UK 13 months later, and
successfully prosecuted for terrorism offences and jailed for life,
three of his fingernails had been removed from his left hand. His
lawyers are appealing against the judge's ruling that the fingernails
were not extracted during early interrogation sessions while he was
being asked the questions passed over by MI5 and Manchester police.

A number of other Britons detained in Pakistan, who say they were
questioned by British intelligence officers after being tortured by
the ISI have been subsequently prosecuted, or deported to the UK and
subjected to control orders.

One vanished in mysterious circumstances in Pakistan and was
subsequently said to have been killed in a US missile attack. A number
of others have been released without charge. A British medical student
was held for almost two months in a building opposite the offices of
the British deputy high commission in Karachi. He says he was tortured
while being questioned about the July 2005 terrorist attacks on
London's transport network before being questioned by two British
intelligence officers.

Binyam Mohamed was detained in Pakistan in 2002 and questioned by MI5
officers before being "rendered" by the United States to Morocco,
where his lawyers claim he suffered appalling torture, including
having his genitals slashed with a razor. It emerged in court that MI5
passed material to the CIA that was used during his interrogation.

The ministers' refusal comes just weeks after Miliband moved to
prevent the release of information from 42 US intelligence documents
that the high court says contain "powerful evidence" of the torture of
Binyam Mohamed and which may have revealed what British ministers knew
of his treatment.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/feb/28/terrorism-human-rights