[IP] Torture flights: what No 10 knew and tried to cover up
-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Randell [mailto:Brian.Randell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 5:44 AM
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Torture flights: what No 10 knew and tried to cover up
Hi Dave:
The main front page story in today's (UK) Guardian, and one of the
top stories on BBC Radio news today, is that of yet another leaked
Government memo.
>Torture flights: what No 10 knew and tried to cover up
>
>Leaked memo reveals strategy to deny knowledge of detention centres
>
>Richard Norton-Taylor
>Thursday January 19, 2006
>The Guardian
>
>The government is secretly trying to stifle attempts by MPs to find
>out what it knows about CIA "torture flights" and privately admits
>that people captured by British forces could have been sent
>illegally to interrogation centres, the Guardian can reveal. A
>hidden strategy aimed at suppressing a debate about rendition - the
>US practice of transporting detainees to secret centres where they
>are at risk of being tortured - is revealed in a briefing paper sent
>by the Foreign Office to No 10.
>
> The document shows that the government has been aware of secret
>interrogation centres, despite ministers' denials. It admits that
>the government has no idea whether individuals seized by British
>troops in Iraq or Afghanistan have been sent to the secret centres.
>
>Dated December 7 last year, the document is a note from Irfan
>Siddiq, of the foreign secretary's private office, to Grace Cassy in
>Tony Blair's office. It was obtained by the New Statesman magazine,
>whose latest issue is published today.
>
>It was drawn up in response to a Downing Street request for advice
>"on substance and handling" of the controversy over CIA rendition
>flights and allegations of Britain's connivance in the practice.
>
>"We should try to avoid getting drawn on detail", Mr Siddiq writes,
>"and to try to move the debate on, in as front foot a way we can,
>underlining all the time the strong anti-terrorist rationale for
>close cooperation with the US, within our legal obligations."
>
>The document advises the government to rely on a statement by
>Condoleezza Rice last month when the US secretary of state said
>America did not transport anyone to a country where it believed they
>would be tortured and that, "where appropriate", Washington would
>seek assurances.
>
>The document notes: "We would not want to cast doubt on the
>principle of such government-to-government assurances, not least
>given our own attempts to secure these from countries to which we
>wish to deport their nationals suspected of involvement in
>terrorism: Algeria etc."
>
>The document says that in the most common use of the term - namely,
>involving real risk of torture - rendition could never be legal. It
>also says that the US emphasised torture but not "cruel, inhuman and
>degrading treatment", which binds Britain under the European
>convention on human rights. British courts have adopted a lower
>threshold of what constitutes torture than the US has.
>
>The note includes questions and answers on a number of issues.
>"Would cooperating with a US rendition operation be illegal?", it
>asks, and gives the response: "Where we have no knowledge of
>illegality, but allegations are brought to our attention, we ought
>to make reasonable enquiries". It asks: "How do we know whether
>those our armed forces have helped to capture in Iraq or Afghanistan
>have subsequently been sent to interrogation centres?" The reply
>given is: "Cabinet Office is researching this with MoD [Ministry of
>Defence]. But we understand the basic answer is that we have no
>mechanism for establishing this, though we would not ourselves
>question such detainees while they were in such facilities".
>
>Ministers have persistently taken the line, in answers to MPs'
>questions, that they were unaware of CIA rendition flights passing
>through Britain or of secret interrogation centres.
>
>On December 7 - the date of the leaked document - Charles Kennedy,
>then Liberal Democrat leader, asked Mr Blair when he was first made
>aware of the American rendition flights, and when he approved them.
>Mr Blair replied: "In respect of airports, I do not know what the
>right hon gentleman is referring to."
. . .
Full text of the above article at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1689852,00.html
Follow-up analysis on an inside page:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/humanrights/story/0,,1689854,00.html
cheers
Brian Randell
--
School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell@xxxxxxxxx PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/
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