[Debate] Tony Blair has 'no recollection' of Libyan dissident's rendition

[Riaz K Tayob]

[Occampo take note... or is the ICC only for Africans?


  Tony Blair has 'no recollection' of Libyan dissident's rendition

Blair, who was PM when Abdel Hakim Belhaj was handed to Gaddafi's 
regime, defends Britain's co-operation with Libya

  *


  *
    Richard Norton-Taylor
    <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/richardnortontaylor>
  * guardian.co.uk <http://www.guardian.co.uk/>, Wednesday 11 April 2012
    14.28 BST
  * Article history
    <http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/apr/11/tony-blair-libyan-dissident-rendition#history-link-box>



Tony Blair said he was sure the rendition of Abdel Hakim Belhaj to Libya 
would be investigated. Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

Tony Blair <http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/tonyblair>, prime 
minister at the time MI6 rendered Abdel Hakim Belhaj, a prominent Libyan 
dissident, to the Gaddafi regime 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/08/special-report-britain-rendition-libya>in 
2004, has said he had "no recollection" of the incident.

But he said he was sure the operation would be investigated "as it 
should be".

Interviewed for BBC Radio 4's World at One programme, Blair added that 
it should be remembered that "people in the Middle East were also trying 
to fight terrorism and extremism". Britain's co-operation with Libya 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/libya> at the time was important, the 
former prime minister said.

He referred to comments made by the then foreign secretary, Jack Straw 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/10/libyan-dissident-compensation-uk-rendition>, 
who said the government had been opposed to unlawful rendition 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/rendition>. "As far as I know [the 
government] kept to that position," Blair said.

Straw has said: "We were opposed to unlawful rendition. We were opposed 
to any use of torture. Not only did we not agree with it; we were not 
complicit in it and nor did we turn a blind eye to it."

However, Straw has added: "No foreign secretary can know all the details 
of what its intelligence agencies are doing at any one time."

Blair told the World at One: "Our security services do a very difficult 
job in very difficult circumstances. I'm sure the matter will be 
investigated as it should be."

The US is preventing MPs from seeing evidence of British involvement in 
the CIA's practice of secretly sending terror suspects to prisons where 
they faced torture.

A federal judge in Washington has used a particular section of the US 
Freedom of Information Act to block a request from the all-party 
parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition, chaired by the senior 
Conservative backbencher Andrew Tyrie.

The judge, Ricardo Urbina, ruled that the information must be withheld 
on the grounds that the parliamentary body was part of a "foreign 
government entity". Tony Lloyd, a deputy chair of the committee and 
Labour MP for Manchester Central, described the ruling as "odd". He said 
it seemed as though the US was looking for an excuse to withhold the 
information.

It would have been more understandable had the US blocked the request on 
national security grounds, Lloyd said. "It's an abuse of the spirit of 
freedom of information," he said. To claim that a parliamentary body was 
part of the British state was "not acceptable", Lloyd added.

Defending the position of the CIA, which did not want the relevant 
documents disclosed, the judge ruled: "Because the court concludes that 
the plaintiffs are representatives or subdivisions of a foreign 
government entity, the court grants the defendants' motion and denies 
the plaintiffs' motion."

The parliamentary group requested records that would determine Britain's 
role in assisting the US by "facilitating such practices, including 
allowing over-flight or refuelling of planes through or on UK territory 
or airspace, or by allowing UK territories to be used to hold detainees".

The group referred to statements by the former Labour foreign secretary 
David Miliband saying Diego Garcia, the US base on Britain's Indian 
Ocean territory, was used for extraordinary renditions.

The judge rejected the group's argument that its members acted as 
individuals and not public officials. By that logic any foreign leader, 
including the late Kim Jong-il, could submit Freedom of Information Act 
requests under their individual capacity, the judge said.

The CIA's approach echoes that adopted by MI6 and MI5, which have fought 
to prevent the disclosure in British courts of evidence relating to the 
US practice of extraordinary rendition.

The parliamentary group, meanwhile, is fighting a refusal by the British 
government to disclose papers that, it says, would reveal UK complicity 
in the secret flights and subsequent abuse of individual suspects. The 
information tribunal in London is expected to give a ruling on the 
request soon.

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