MPs call for torture inquiry
Updated on 03 August 2009
A committee of MPs condemns the government for a "woefully deficient" attitude towards accountability for security and intelligence, particularly over questions about the UK's role in torture.
Ministers, the committee says, "appear to have been determined to avoid parliamentary scrutiny".
The damning verdict is contained in a report out today by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Their report examines a series of "serious" allegations of UK complicity in torture, and concludes ministers have dodged addressing them.
The committee's report looks at accusations that at least 11 British nationals were questioned by British intelligence services either between or just after bouts of "mistreatment" by Pakistani interrogators.
Also examined is an accusation concerning Azhar Khan, said to have been questioned under torture in Egypt "on the basis of information that must have been supplied by the UK authorities".
The committee looks too at accusations that UK security services "facilitated interviews" in Pakistan of Binyam Mohamed while he was being detained unlawfully, and that the UK used intelligence handed over by Uzbekistan that they knew, or should have known, was obtained by torture.
Channel 4 News reported in July earlier this year that MI5 admitted one of its officers was in Morocco at the same time former terror suspect Binyam Mohamed claims he was being tortured by the CIA.
Unequivocally, the committee finds, the accusations of complicity in torture would amount to illegality if proved; but says the government has failed to engage with the charges, instead "hiding behind a wall of secrecy".
"As to what may have happened in the past, general assertions of non-complicity are no longer an adequate response to the many detailed allegations," according to the report.
The committee calls for an independent enquiry. Ministers, it says, deserve a "wake up call". It concludes that "in view of the large number of unanswered questions ...there is now no other way to restore public confidence in the intelligence services than by setting up an independent inquiry."
Labour MP and chair of the committee, Andrew Dismore, said: "The allegations we have heard about UK complicity in torture are extremely serious. It is unacceptable both for Ministers to refuse to answer policy questions about the Security Services, and for the Director General of MI5 to answer questions from the press but not from a Parliamentary committee."
Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague said: "The Government's failure to answer growing questions about torture and rendition are damaging the good name of this country.
"It is right that the Attorney General and police are investigating whether crimes have been committed. All credible allegations of complicity in torture should be thoroughly investigated if public trust is to be restored."
