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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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November 5th,
2009 - Proposals to Outlaw Extraordinary Rendition in the UK Drawn Up |
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Proposals to Outlaw
Extraordinary Rendition in the UK Drawn Up All party parliamentary group recommends criminalising the use of
British facilities for extraordinary rendition flights. By Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian November 5, 2009 New criminal offences to
outlaw the practice of extraordinary rendition - secretly transporting terror
suspects to places where they are likely to be tortured - have been drawn up
by a cross-party parliamentary committee. They will close the gap in
English law that has allowed the use of UK territory for the purposes of
extraordinary rendition in the past, Andrew Tyrie, Conservative MP for
Chichester, said today. The all-party parliamentary
group (APPG) on extraordinary rendition recommends criminalising various
acts, including the use of British facilities for extraordinary rendition
flights and the failure to prevent extraordinary rendition flights using
those facilities. The proposals will also ban so-called "circuit
flights" - using UK airports for flights passing through the country to
enable a rendition but without a detainee on board at the time. The proposals have been
drawn up with the help of the law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringe. Cases currently going
through the courts, including that involving Binyam Mohamed, will determine
whether existing law deals adequately with the involvement of British
officials in interrogating suspects who have been rendered or tortured. This
is not covered by the existing proposals. Tyrie said: "English
law has been insufficient to prevent UK involvement in extraordinary
rendition. These proposals will buttress existing law. If implemented they
will give the public greater confidence that Britain is not complicit in
extraordinary rendition." Paul Lomas, a partner at
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, said: "Involvement in rendition breaches
the UK's international obligations. A focused law will make prosecutions
easier, deter the activity and show the UK as setting high standards
internationally in this area." Clive Stafford Smith,
director of the legal charity Reprieve, said: "Recent events have shown
that our law is not effective to prohibit the evils of rendition. If the
government is serious about its criticisms of this lawless activity it should
consider the APPG proposals immediately." The UK has been implicated
in the CIA's extraordinary rendition programme, which has been widely
condemned by human rights groups, the Council of Europe and UN investigators. The APPG said that in
February 2008 the foreign secretary confirmed that, despite repeated and
express US assurances to the contrary, two rendition flights with detainees
on board refuelled at the British island of Diego Garcia. In August 2008, the high
court ruled that the UK had "facilitated" the incommunicado
interrogation of British resident Mohamed, and that its involvement "was
far beyond that of a bystander or witness to the alleged wrongdoing". In
February 2009 the defence secretary confirmed that, contrary to previous
assurances, two detainees captured by UK forces in Iraq and transferred to US
forces had been rendered to Afghanistan. External link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/nov/05/rendition-outlaw-uk-law |