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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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March 27th,
2009 - Torture Inquiry Reveals 15 New Cases News article from the Daily
Telegraph |
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Torture
Inquiry Reveals 15 New Cases MI5 and MI6 have identified at least 15 cases of possible complicity
by British officers in the torture or mistreatment of terror suspects
following the case of the Guantánamo detainee Binyam Mohamed. By Duncan Gardham & Con Coughlin Daily Telegraph March 27, 2009 Inquiries have revealed
British security and intelligence officers have raised concerns about the
treatment of several detainees, interviewed while in US custody abroad. Earlier this week, in the
first investigation of its type, police launched a criminal inquiry into
allegations made by Mr Mohamed that MI5 was aware he was being tortured in a
secret prison and that British officers fed questions to the CIA. Baroness Scotland, the
Attorney General, asked Scotland Yard to investigate following a review of
“highly sensitive” material surrounding the case. But senior officials in both
MI5 and MI6 have reviewed their files and fear that 15 similar cases could
also lead to police investigations. It raises the prospect of a
series of criminal investigations into the security and intelligence services
and will add to pressure from some quarters for a full inquiry into the
allegations. Gordon Brown has already ordered a review of procedures. The 15 individuals, thought
to include British and foreign nationals, were all interrogated under US
control by British officers keen to acquire intelligence that could reveal
plans for attacks in Britain. During the interrogations,
the British officers were instructed to operate under the terms of the Geneva
Conventions - unlike their US counterparts. In several cases they reported
fears that the suspects were being mistreated but their concerns were not
followed up. As in Mr Mohamed’s case,
there is no suggestion that British officers participated in the mistreatment,
but officials are concerned they could still be held accountable. Sources concede the rules
governing the conduct of the British had to be tightened after the
interrogations, most of which were conducted in the immediate aftermath of
the September 11 attacks when officers were not ready for the many cases they
faced or the US approach to the detainees. They also say they were not
aware that the US had a rendition programme in which prisoners were moved to
third countries for interrogation. However, security sources
say the cases have been reviewed in the light of Mr Mohamed’s allegations. A senior security source
said: “Officers conducted a significant number of interviews after 9/11 to
acquire life saving intelligence and we have kept those cases under review.
The aim is to improve procedures and training and to see where lessons can be
learned but where there has been significant concern we have brought the
cases to the notice of others.” Most of the cases date to a
period between 2002 and 2004 when officers were interrogating a large number
of terrorist suspects captured during the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq,
including Mr Mohamed. It is understood that MI5
and MI6 conducted more than 100 interviews in Afghanistan more than 100 at Guantanamo
Bay and more than 2,000 in Iraq. In one case, cited in a
report to the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, an officer
from MI5 reported to his superiors that a US official in Afghanistan in July
2002, had told him they were “getting a detainee ready” for interrogation,
which appeared to involve hooding him, depriving him of sleep and making the
suspect stand in painful “stress positions” before shining bright lights into
his eyes during questioning. Another case, in which an
MI6 officer attended an interrogation by the US military in Afghanistan,
involved a man who had previously had a nervous breakdown, who was kept in
isolation. Other concerns involved
prisoners in Iraq during June 2003 where officers reported that they had seen
suspects in US detention who were variously shackled and hooded, kept in
inhumane conditions, punched and denied contact with their families. During a visit to Abu Ghraib
prison in Iraq in February 2004, a British military intelligence officer saw
a prisoner being manhandled from his cell to an interrogation room. MI5 officers who conducted
their last interviews at Guantanamo Bay in February 2004, reported that some
of the detainees were depressed and withdrawn and that their mental condition
was deteriorating. One had complained about
being held in solitary confinement for over a year, not seeing daylight for
four months, being denied reading material and restriction of mail. The first concerns were
raised on January 10 2002, the first day that MI6 officers were given access
to US-held detainees in Afghanistan, many of whom had been captured during
the battle at Mazar-e-Sharif. A memo sent to the officer
involved the following day, and copied to all agents, said: “With regard to
the status of the prisoners, under the various Geneva Conventions and
protocols, all prisoners, however they are described, are entitled to the
same levels of protection. “You have commented on their
treatment. It appears from your description that they may not be being treated
in accordance with the appropriate standards. Given that they are not within
our custody or control, the law does not require you to intervene to prevent
this. “That said, Her Majesty’s
Government’s stated commitment to human rights makes it important that the
Americans understand that we cannot be party to such ill treatment nor can we
be seen to condone it. In no case should they be coerced during or in
conjunction with an [MI6] interview of them. “If circumstances allow, you
should consider drawing this to the attention of a suitably senior US
official locally.” The memo told the officer it
was “important that you do not engage in any activity yourself that involves
inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners” and explained that if he did so
he could face prosecution “in the same way as if you were carrying out those
acts in the UK” under the Criminal Justice Act. It added that he was
“obliged to act in accordance with the Human Rights Act 2000 which prohibits
torture, or inhumane or degrading treatment.” Rules governing the
interrogation of prisoners, which banned the use of hooding, stress positions
and “physical and mental torture” were not issued to the military until
September 2003 and copied to MI5 and MI6 in June 2004, when ministers were
made aware for the first time of the concerns of some agents. The Intelligence and
Security Committee, a cross-party committee of MPs appointed by the Prime
Minister, recommended in 2005 that ministers should be informed where
security and intelligence officials had concerns about the interrogation of
detainees, that clear guidelines should be issued beforehand and that these
concerns should be “followed up by the UK authorities and, so far as it is
within their power, fully investigated.” It is not known who the
prisoners referred to were, but several terrorism suspects were transferred
to Guantanamo Bay around the same time, including Moazzam Begg, Feroz Abbasi,
Martin Mubanga and Richard Belmar along with the so-called “Tipton Taliban”
Shafiq Rasul, Ruhal Ahmed and Asif Iqbal. External link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/5063053/Torture-inquiry-reveals-15-new-cases.html |