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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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April 19th,
2009 - British Intelligence Prosecution Fear over US Torture Memos |
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British
Intelligence Prosecution Fear over US Torture Memos By Michael Evans The Times April 19, 2009 Fresh revelations about the CIA’s
torture techniques have thrown the spotlight on British Intelligence, which
gained valuable insight into terror networks from confessions extracted by
American officers. They have raised further fears that British agents could
be prosecuted for their indirect role in the abuse of detainees. Documents declassified this
week by the Obama Administration - four US Justice Department memos
authorising “harsh interrogation” - show that the CIA based more than 3,000
intelligence reports on the questioning of “high-value” terror suspects from
September 11 2001 to April 2003. They were sanctioned by US
government lawyers during the Bush presidency, and MI5 and MI6 would have had
access to huge amounts of such material. There is evidence of highly
questionable intelligence-gathering procedures by US servicemen and support
for torture, murder and inhumane treatment The memos show that the
majority of these reports - some of which would have been passed to the
British as part of intelligence-sharing arrangements between the two
countries - came “from detainees subjected to enhanced interrogation
techniques”. In the period between
September 11 2001 and April 2003, there were a number of crucial intelligence
tip-offs to the British authorities that may have come via US interrogation
of suspected al-Qaeda terrorists. They include the alert that
led to the decision by Tony Blair in February 2003 to send 400 troops in
light tanks to Heathrow after a warning of an imminent attack on airliners
coming into the airport. Another led to the deployment of special forces to
intercept a cargo vessel, the MV Nisha, off the Isle of Wight in December
2001 because of intelligence that a ship in the English Channel might be
carrying biological weapon components. US Justice Department
lawyers justified the techniques, saying that they did not induce severe pain
or long-term mental ill health. Opponents of the practice have described it
as “torture lite”. The CIA told the US Justice
Department that the enhanced interrogation methods used - including
waterboarding (simulating drowning), cramped confinement, wall-standing and
sleep deprivation - had been “virtually indispensable” to obtaining
“actionable intelligence”. Some Whitehall officials were hoping that the
stark clarity of the legal arguments justifying harsh interrogation would
keep the focus of attention on the Washington end of the story. But there
remain concerns of possible legal implications for Britain, as America’s most
intimate partner in the intelligence business. Officials said the Government
and the intelligence services had had no knowledge of the US Justice
Department’s memos until they were published on Thursday night. There are already fears in
both MI5 and MI6 - arising from the case of Binyam Mohamed, who alleged that
he was tortured by the CIA in a secret detention centre in Morocco - that
their counter-terrorist intelligence work will be restricted in the future
because of concern that individual officers might face prosecution if found
to have been indirectly involved. Mr Mohamed, an
Ethiopian-born British resident recently released from four years of
detention in Guantánamo Bay, claimed that he was subjected to inhumane
treatment during interrogation by the CIA and that some of the questions had been
framed by MI5. His allegations are now the subject of a Scotland Yard
investigation ordered by Baroness Scotland of Asthal, QC, the
Attorney-General, to assess whether any British intelligence officer was
criminally complicit in Mr Mohamed’s mistreatment. Asked whether the Prime
Minister intended to stop any possible prosecution of intelligence officers
in the case of Binyam Mohamed, in the light of President Obama’s decision not
to allow CIA officers to be prosecuted, No 10 referred the question to the
Home Office. A spokesman there said: “This case has been handed to the
Metropolitan Police and is a matter for them and for the Crown Prosecution
Service.” The details contained in the
four US Justice Department memos may help Mr Mohamed to make his case against
the British authorities. Their publication could also generate additional
claims by other CIA-held detainees with links to Britain, attempting to show
that Britain was complicit. The response from Whitehall
yesterday was that interrogation methods used by the intelligence services
were carefully drawn up and constantly reviewed. MI5 and MI6 intelligence
officers who are sent abroad to question detainees held by foreign agencies
receive special training and are reminded that they must protect the human
rights of arrested terror suspects. Foreign and Commonwealth
Office officials said that MI5 and MI6 were governed by guidelines drawn up
by the Cabinet Office and approved by the Attorney-General, as the
Government’s chief legal adviser. The lawyers for both MI5 and MI6 are then
responsible for ensuring that the legal requirements are understood by
individual officers. The guidance is currently
classified but on March 18, after the accusations by Mr Mohamed, Gordon Brown
announced that the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee would
review the wording of the guidelines and they would then be published. The guidelines, however, are
based on the overriding principle that torture is never justified and that
members of the security and intelligence services - and the Armed Forces -
must observe the Geneva Conventions and the laws of armed conflict. Hooding,
sleep deprivation, excessive noise, refusing food and water - all are banned. Even if the British
standards are proven to be above board and legal, it does not let the
intelligence services off the hook if it can be shown that they suspected or
knew of methods being used by the CIA - or other foreign agencies - that
could be defined as torture. This is the dilemma at the heart of the Binyam
Mohamed case, and both MI5 and MI6 are concerned that they might be deprived
of potentially life-saving intelligence if they are barred from dealing with
foreign agencies whose detainee-handling record is questionable. In 2005 Jack Straw, when he
was Foreign Secretary, gave evidence to the Intelligence and Security
Committee on the handling of prisoners and referred to the “moral hazard”
faced by the authorities when given a piece of credible intelligence that
might have been extracted through unacceptable practices. “Do you ignore it?”
he asked. “My answer to that is, the moment at which it is put before you,
you have to make an assessment about its credibility.” “What if we had been told
through liaison partners [foreign intelligence agencies] that September 11
was going to happen, with all the details. Torture is completely unacceptable
... but you cannot ignore it if the price of ignoring it is 3,000 people
dead.” The Committee’s report
revealed that British intelligence officers conducted or witnessed more than
2,000 interviews in Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay and Iraq, and that there were
“fewer than 15 occasions when there were actual or potential breaches of
either UK policy or the international conventions involving or reported by UK
intelligence personnel”. It also claimed that British
intelligence officers had on several occasions complained about the rough
treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, and that American officials
promised to take their comments into account. MI5, with the backing of
MI6, told the Committee in evidence: “Clearly the US is holding al-Qaeda
members in detention other than in Guantánamo, but we do not know the
locations or terms of their detention and do not have access to them.” The Security Service went
on: “We have, however, received intelligence of the highest value from
detainees to whom we have not had access and whose location is unknown to us,
some of which has led to the frustration of terrorist attacks in the UK or
against UK interests.” In the case of Mr Mohamed,
MI5 passed a series of questions to the CIA without knowing where he had been
taken. An MI5 officer had a
face-to-face session with Mr Mohamed in a jail in Pakistan after he was
arrested in 2002. But subsequent questions were posed on MI5’s behalf by CIA
intelligence officers after he had been flown out of Pakistan on an
“extraordinary rendition flight” to Morocco, and then on to Bagram in
Afghanistan before he was incarcerated in Guantánamo Bay. The British resident 1994 - Binyam Mohamed, 30,
born in Ethiopia, arrives in Britain, seeking asylum. His application is
rejected, but he is given leave to stay for four years, and lives in North
Kensington. 2001 - He converts to Islam
and flies to Pakistan and then Afghanistan. He claims that the trip was to
cure him of a drug habit and to observe an Islamic state in operation. The US
claims that he was fighting with the Taleban and training in an al-Qaeda
camp. 2002 - He is arrested at
Karachi airport, Pakistan, and charged with conspiracy linked to a terrorist
plot in the US. Five months after his arrest he is flown by the CIA to
Morocco, where he alleges he was tortured for a period of 18 months. 2004 - He is transferred to
Guantánamo Bay via a CIA prison at Bagram in Kabul. 2005 - Charges are dropped.
He stays in the US camp in Cuba. 2009 - Released in February,
he is flown to London, where he is granted residence for two years. His claim
that he was tortured and that some of the questions during his interrogation
were supplied by an MI5 officer is now the subject of a police inquiry. External link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6115286.ece |