|
The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
|
February 15th,
2010 - How MI5 Kept Watchdog in the Dark over Claims of Torture |
|
How MI5 Kept Watchdog in the
Dark over Detainees’ Claims of Torture By David Leigh & Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian February 15, 2010 It was in the middle of 2008
that Jonathan Evans, director general of MI5, delivered a bombshell
confession to the previously compliant parliamentarians of the intelligence
and security committee. He told them, in strict
secrecy as usual, that assurances of MI5 innocence previously accepted
without demur by the politicians had in fact been false. The committee, which was
supposed to supervise MI5's policies, had already published a reassuring
report on the basis of what it had been told. That report, based on testimony
from Eliza Manningham-Buller, Evans's predecessor, informed the world that
MI5 had been unaware of any ill-treatment dished out by its US allies to
Binyam Mohamed. The opposite was true. As
the appeal court has now finally revealed, detailed briefings had been
supplied at the time by Washington on the CIA's "new strategy" for
softening up Mohamed and others, for which it demanded British help. This new
American "war on terror" involved the use of prolonged sleep
deprivation, shackling and threats that Mohamed would be
"disappeared", applied to the point where his mental stability
corroded and he apparently became suicidal. These interrogation tactics,
of systematic ill-treatment which might amount to torture, had supposedly
been banned by Britain since 1972, when it came to light that the British
army was using them on IRA suspects. But far from denouncing or
even criticising US behaviour, MI5 officers co-operated with it. The secret files,
when they eventually emerged, revealed that an MI5 officer had travelled to
Karachi to help with the interrogation of Mohammed. Other MI5 desk officers
and "more senior" figures also knew the contents of the CIA files,
according to judgments of the British high court. That these facts had been
kept from the ISC was a demonstration of the committee's impotence. Critics
say the ISC is a useless government poodle, and the Binyam Mohamed affair
appears to strengthen their case. Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie
said yesterday: "The ISC is not … able to get to the truth. The chairman
is a prime ministerial appointee. This has allowed a revolving door between
chairmanship of the ISC and the government front bench. That door should be
closed." The MI5 head finally felt
obliged to confess to the ISC in 2008 and hand over the documents, because
disclosure orders obtained by Mohamed's lawyers and enforced by the courts
had led to the discovery of 42 incriminating files. All had originally been kept
from the ISC, which, despite its supposed special access within Whitehall's
"ring of secrecy", is powerless to compel disclosure of documents,
even if its under-resourced members had any idea of what to ask for. Public protests from the ISC
about such impotence have been ignored by No 10 in the past. In this case,
the ISC was forced to admit in 2009 that the "new information [which]
had come to light about the Binyam Mohamed case … had been overlooked during
the committee's original rendition inquiry". No public explanation has
been offered of why the files were originally suppressed. Nor has the public
been told how and by whom they were eventually unearthed within the bowels of
Thames House. These may be matters for any future judicial inquiry into a
cover-up. The anonymous MI5 officer
who went to Karachi and subsequently gave evidence to the high court that
nothing was known of US malpractice has been targeted as a potential criminal
suspect. It has been announced that a police inquiry is being held into his
behaviour. This has been used as a justification by ministers, MI5 and ISC
itself to remain silent. But the investigation has produced no tangible
results, more than 18 months later. The ISC claimed in March
2009 to have conducted its own "detailed investigation" into the
scandal, having been confronted with it, and to have sent a private letter to
the prime minister as a result. It managed to do this
without interviewing any witness who alleged direct knowledge of British
complicity in torture - neither campaigners such as Human Rights Watch, nor
media investigators, nor any of the alleged victims themselves. The ISC only saw witnesses
in secret once again, from MI5, MI6 and the Foreign Office, and has failed to
publish any of its purported findings. Had it not been for the
judges defying repeated heavy pressure from the executive and going public,
British voters would have learnt little from the ISC's activities. The ISC
has so far only provided them with false information in its 2007 report,
followed by a lack of information in subsequent reports. This is nothing new, critics
say. Its heavily censored reports have long been derided as establishment
whitewash. Not appointed by parliament,
gagged by the Official Secrets Act, and even forced to meet outside
Westminster, the ISC's members are more emasculated even than conventional
select committees. The chairmanship is usually awarded as a sop to a former
government minister, currently Kim Howells. Downing St has enforced a
'convention' under which only its chair is allowed to give interviews. The committee has had only
had a tiny secretariat of half a dozen clerks, and no investigative capacity
of its own. In March last year Gordon
Brown promised reform. He said: "We will … enshrine an enhanced scrutiny
and public role for the ISC. This will lead to more parliamentary debate on
security matters, public hearings … and … greater transparency over
appointments to the committee." But nothing was done. Brown
also promised to publish fresh guidance to bar MI5 from colluding in torture.
Last autumn, the ISC protested that no guidance had materialised. A draft was
then sent to the committee, but nothing has yet been published. Similarly,
the ISC's latest annual report is still sitting in Downing St, awaiting
censorship. Another parliamentary
committee has been tougher. Last august, the joint committee on human rights
concluded the UK government was "determined to avoid parliamentary
scrutiny" and said an independent inquiry was the only way to restore
public confidence. How the ISC was misled There was a secret session
of the ISC on 23 November 2006 at the Cabinet Office. The then head of MI5,
Eliza Manningham-Buller, pictured, testified about MI5's role in the US
interrogation of Binyam Mohammed that took place under her predecessor,
Stephen Lander. A heavily censored ISC
report published in July 2007 showed Manningham-Buller and her team had
claimed to lack knowledge that Mohamed was being ill-treated. The ISC -
chaired by former Northern Ireland secretary Paul Murphy - was told: "A
member of the security service did interview [Mohamed] once for a period of
approximately three hours while he was detained in Karachi in 2002." The
interrogator, later known as Witness B, was "an experienced
officer" who conducted the interview "in line with the services'
guidance to staff on contact with detainees". The ISC recorded: "The
security service denies that the officer told [Mohamed] he would be tortured
as he alleges … He did not observe any abuse and … no instances of abuse were
mentioned by [Mohamed]." Murphy's committee reported
that MI5 had "lack of knowledge at the time of any possible consequences
of US custody of detainees." That statement now appears to have been
untrue. The six key questions posed by Human Rights Watch to the government 1. What steps as a matter of
policy does the UK government, including all intelligence and security
agencies, take to ensure that torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
or punishment are not used in any cases in which it has asked the Pakistani authorities
for assistance or co-operation? 2. What does the UK
government do when it learns that torture or illtreatment has occurred in a particular
case? 3. What conditions has the
UK government put on continuing co-operation and assistance with Pakistan in
counter-terror and law enforcement activities? 4. Has the UK government ever
conditioned continuing co-operation or assistance with Pakistan on an end to
torture and other ill-treatment? 5. Has the UK government
ever withdrawn cooperation in a particular case or cases because of torture
or ill-treatment? 6. What is the policy and
legal advice in force to ensure that UK officials and agents do not participate
or acquiesce in, or are complicit in torture or ill-treatment? External link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/15/how-mu5-kept-watchdog-in-the-dark |