[Debate] Kenyans allege British involvement in rendition and torture in Uganda - Tories and Lib Dems join the Coalition for Torture...

[Riaz K Tayob]

Kenyans allege British involvement in rendition and torture in Uganda

Claims by two Muslims accused of role in bomb attack during 2010 World 
Cup date from after coalition came to power

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  *
    Ian Cobain <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/iancobain>
  * guardian.co.uk <http://www.guardian.co.uk>, Tuesday 24 April 2012
    22.34 BST
  * Article history
    <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/24/kenyans-allege-british-involvement-rendition#history-link-box>



Omar Awadh Omar, Habib Suleiman Njoroge and Yahya Suleiman Mbuthia. 
Photograph: Guardian

Two men facing terrorism charges in east Africa 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/africa> are accusing the British 
government and its intelligence agencies of being involved in their 
abduction, unlawful rendition 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/rendition> and torture.

The allegations by Habib Suleiman Njoroge and his brother Yahya Suleiman 
Mbuthia closely echo those reported in the Guardian last year by a third 
terrorism suspect 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/17/torture-suspect-claims-abuse>, 
Omar Awadh Omar.

The high court in London has given all three men permission to seek 
disclosure of British government documents that would support their 
claim that the UK was involved in their alleged mistreatment. Njoroge 
and Omar have also been given permission to seek documents relating to 
their rendition at a hearing at the high court in London this week.

*During proceedings in the Ugandan courts, the men alleged British and 
American intelligence officers beat and punched them, hooded them, 
threatened them with firearms and told them they were to be flown to 
Guantánamo Bay. In response, the Ugandan government denied the men were 
mistreated, but said "the nature of the terrorist attacks necessitated 
joint investigations, by Ugandan police with foreign security officers, 
which included joint interrogations".*

*The trio's allegations date from August and September 2010, several 
months after the coalition government was formed. They come despite 
attempts by ministers to distance themselves from the torture and 
rendition scandals that dogged the previous Labour government, while 
also expressing clear support for the country's intelligence agencies.*

Njoroge and Mbuthia were among a number of Kenyan Muslims detained in 
2010 and taken to Uganda <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/uganda> for 
questioning about two suicide bomb attacks on crowds of people watching 
World Cup football matches in July of that year. The Somali militant 
group al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attacks that killed 79 
people and injured 70.

According to a report submitted to the United Nations security council 
<http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Full_Report_1869.pdf> 
last year, Omar, Njoroge and Mbuthia were linked by telephone records to 
a mobile phone that was attached to a third suicide bomb vest, which 
failed to explode. Kenyan media reports have claimed Omar was a leading 
figure in the bomb plot. All three men deny any involvement.

Omar was kidnapped in broad daylight in a Nairobi shopping centre and 
driven across the border to Uganda, where he says British and American 
interrogators were waiting for him. Omar says one of his interrogators, 
an Englishman who called himself Frank, became particularly angry and 
began stamping on his bare feet while asking him about two British 
Muslims who had been arrested in Nairobi.

*Njoroge, a radio presenter from Mombasa, was arrested in September 
2010, interrogated by Kenyan police and then allegedly driven while 
hooded and shackled to the Ugandan border to be handed over to that 
country's Rapid Response Unit (RRU), a police body whose use of torture 
has been documented 
<http://www.hrw.org/reports/2011/03/23/violence-instead-vigilance> by 
human rights groups*.

*While in RRU custody, Njoroge says he was kept naked, beaten, sexually 
assaulted and forced to sign a statement in which he confessed to being 
involved in the bombings. Among the officials interrogating him, he 
says, were men with American and British accents.*

Mbuthia's complaint that he had been rendered from Kenya 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/kenya> to Uganda a few days before his 
brother is not contested by the Ugandan authorities. He was dragged from 
a bus in Nairobi, hooded and handcuffed and driven to the border, where 
he says he was beaten and threatened with execution by RRU officers.

He says that, after being deprived of food and liquid for three days, he 
was interrogated by FBI officers who beat him, pointed firearms at him 
and threatened to shoot him if he refused to testify against Omar. 
During subsequent interrogation sessions, he says, the Americans were 
joined by a man with a Scottish accent.

The high court has concluded 
<http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2012/681.html&query=NJOROGE&method=boolean> 
that there is a case to be made that the British government "would have 
been aware that there was evidence over many years that the RRU used 
illegal methods and severely mistreated those in its custody" during 
interrogation.

Asked about the claims, a Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "The UK 
government's policy is clear: we do not participate in, solicit, 
encourage or condone the use of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading 
treatment or punishment for any purpose. We have consistently made clear 
our absolute opposition to such behaviour and our determination to 
combat it wherever and whenever it occurs. We cannot comment on ongoing 
legal cases."

*Omar, Njoroge and Mbuthia's UK lawyers are pursuing similar arguments 
to those deployed on behalf of Binyam Mohamed three years ago, during 
litigation that exposed MI5 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/mi5>'s 
complicity in his torture in Pakistan and Morocco, and which resulted in 
one of the country's most senior judges condemning the agency's 
officials <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8538410.stm> for their "dubious 
record" over those abuses.*

The allegations are resulting in the sort of court cases that would be 
heard behind closed doors under controversial new secrecy proposals 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/02/justice-and-security-green-paper-silence-in-court> 
drawn up by Ken Clarke's Ministry of Justice, in consultation with MI5 
and MI6 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/mi6>.

Under those plans, ministers would be able to decide that evidence they 
considered too sensitive to be aired in public during civil trials -- 
including trials in which they themselves are defendants -- could be 
concealed from the public, the media and even the claimants.

The same green paper 
<http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm81/8194/8194.pdf> 
contains proposals to prevent claimants from making use of the legal 
doctrine that has been employed by lawyers representing the three men 
during efforts to force the government to disclose any documentary 
evidence that shows it was involved in their rendition and mistreatment.

After parliament's human rights committee published a damning report 
<http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201012/jtselect/jtrights/286/28602.htm> 
about the proposals, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg warned cabinet 
colleagues 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/apr/04/human-rights-committee-hidden-justice> 
that they were unacceptable in their current form.

In a major speech last November 
<http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=Speech&id=692973282> on 
the work of the agencies, William Hague, the foreign secretary, said the 
coalition was "drawing a line under the past". Hague stressed, however, 
that he was obliged to grapple with "the most difficult ethical and 
legal questions".

East Africa has been of growing concern to US and UK intelligence 
agencies, who say that about 200 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/21/al-shabaab-somali-militant-recruiting> 
foreigners have travelled to Somalia 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/somalia> to train and fight with 
al-Shabaab. Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, describes 
<http://www.somaliaonline.com/community/showthread.php/60475-US-Secretary-of-defence-Leon-E-Panetta-arrives-in-Djibouti-PICS> 
the US military base at Camp Lemonnier in neighbouring Djibouti as "the 
central location for continuing the effort against terrorism". Despite 
an increase in military aid to neighbouring countries, Jonathan Evans, 
the director general of MI5, has said 
<https://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/the-threat-to-national-security.html> he 
is "concerned that it is only a matter of time before we see terrorism 
on our streets inspired by those who are today fighting alongside 
al-Shabaab".

British concerns were heightened by initial reports that a young British 
Muslim from London had a hand in the suicide bomb attacks, although it 
is thought that MI5 and MI6 no longer believe this to be the case. This 
individual has since been reported to have been killed in Somalia. A 
significant number of other British Muslims are reported to have 
travelled to the region to join up with al-Shabaab, and many are thought 
to have travelled through Kenya.

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