Quote:Police investigate claim MI5 was complicit in Shaker Aamer's torture

Metropolitan police investigate claims the last UK resident held in
Guantánamo Bay was tortured with MI5's knowledge

Richard Norton-Taylor and Vikram Dodd
guardian.co.uk, Friday 19 February 2010 16.24 GMT


Police are investigating claims that MI5 was complicit in the torture of Shaker Aamer who is the last British resident being held at Guantanamo Bay. Photograph: PA

The Metropolitan police is investigating allegations that MI5 was complicit in the torture of Shaker Aamer, the last remaining British resident in Guantánamo Bay, it was revealed today.

Investigating officers have applied to the high court for the release of classified government documents relating to the case. They are already investigating claims of MI5 complicity in the ill-treatment of British resident Binyam Mohamed while being held by the US.

Saudi-born Aamer has accused British security and intelligence officers of being aware of his torture in US custody at Bagram airport prison in Afghanistan. He is also a witness in Mohamed's case.

Aamer, 42, is married to a British national who lives with their four children in London. He has been held by the US for more than seven years without charge.

Meanwhile the human rights watchdog, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission has called for an inquiry into claims that the security services were complicit in the torture of more than 20 terror suspects. The commission's chairman, Trevor Phillips, has written to Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to say the government "needs urgently to put in place a review process to assess the truth or otherwise of all these allegations".

Yesterday Richard Hermer, QC, Aamer's counsel, told the high court that Met officers visited his solicitors, Birnberg Peirce, on Wednesday. He told Mr Justice Sullivan: "It became apparent they are now investigating allegations raised by Mr Aamer into the alleged complicity of the UK security service in his mistreatment." He said the police had made an application to the court "for release of relevant documents". They are understood to relate to allegations that confessions Aamer made were obtained through torture.

The Guantánamo detainee review taskforce is expected to decide soon whether Aamer should be released.

After initially refusing to release the documents, the foreign secretary, David Miliband, recently agreed to hand them over to the US authorities following a high court ruling in Aamer's favour.

Sullivan said today: "These whole proceedings have been a gigantic waste of time and money." He awarded Aamer's lawyers costs against the government, ordering an interim payment of £25,000.

The court was told in earlier hearings that Aamer had been held in Guantánamo since February 2002. It is alleged that on one occasion his head was repeatedly "banged so hard against a wall that it bounced" while an MI5 officer was present. He says he was also threatened with death.

Aamer's solicitor, Gareth Peirce, said today : "It is of central importance and urgency that everything is done to have him returned to this country." She said the government had said it was making strenuous efforts to have him returned, but no diplomatic pressure had been exerted.

Aamer's US lawyer, Brent Mickum, said: "I have seen records of interviews with him by the UK security services …They were fully aware that he was complaining about his treatment and had been tortured."

David Guyatt Wrote:Well, well, well, what's all this then? Amen.

The Bill investigating the Box? Unheard of in my lifetime. Does this suggest that the Brown government and the Mandarins are at war?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/19/police-claims-shaker-aamer-torture-mi5-complicit?CMP=AFCYAH

Quote:MI5 and MI6 not to be investigated over torture claims

[B]MI5 and MI6 will not be investigated over allegations they were complicit in the torture of terror suspects abroad, the Attorney General has decided. [/B]

Baroness Scotland considered the cases following a report by the pressure group Human Rights Watch, published last November.

In a statement released yesterday the Attorney General’s department said the time taken to respond reflected “careful consideration of the report.”

It added: “The Attorney has not asked the police to investigate the allegations in the report” but said that individual allegations could still be brought directly to the attention of the police.

The statement said the Attorney General had received no files or other information on the cases in addition to the report, which was already in the public domain.

It added: “The Attorney notes that the English courts have rejected claims that alleged UK complicity in ill-treatment amounted to abuse of process in the criminal cases of two of these individuals covered by the report,” referring to convicted al-Qaeda prisoners Rangzieb Ahmed and Salahuddin Amin.

In others it said it was not possible to go into further detail for various reasons, including some that are the subject of ongoing legal proceedings.

The Attorney General also rejected calls for a judicial inquiry because such issues were being addressed in civil litigation going through the courts.

“Where the law affords an opportunity for individuals to seek redress for civil claims it is appropriate that they are given access to justice to allow these claims to be heard,” the statement added.

MI5 and MI6 are already the subject of two separate criminal inquiries in relation to Binyam Mohamed, the former Guantanamo detainee, and another unidentified case.

The five cases included a 24-year-old medical student, identified only as ZZ, who was allegedly tortured for two months in Karachi.

He claims he was questioned by two British intelligence officers.

Four other cases involved suspects formally accused or convicted of involvement in terrorism.

Zeeshan Siddiqui, from Hounslow, west London, was arrested in Pakistan in May 2005. His lawyers claim he was interviewed while in a traumatised state six times by British intelligence officers.

Convicted terrorist Amin, from north London, has said after being tortured he was questioned on almost a dozen occasions by two men called Matt and Richard, who allegedly said they were from MI5.

It was claimed agents were also allegedly involved in the case of Ahmed, from Lancashire, who was convicted of directing terrorism in Britain in 2008.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph earlier this month, Jonathan Evans, the director-general of MI5, admitted British intelligence agencies were "slow to detect" US mistreatment of detainees.

But he insisted: "We in the UK agencies did not practise mistreatment or torture then and do not do so now, nor do we collude in torture or encourage others to torture on our behalf."

Magda Hassan Wrote:....I keep hearing the name Baroness Scotland and it is never good.

Quote:Fresh legal bid on torture advice
By Dominic Casciani
BBC News
The government is facing fresh legal action over secret guidance on torture given to intelligence officers interviewing detainees abroad.

Legal charity Reprieve, which represents several former Guantanamo Bay detainees, wants the advice for MI5 and MI6 officers to be published.

It says the guidelines condone complicity in torture.

Ministers say the guidance was lawful but has been superseded by new rules, which will soon be published.

'Compelling evidence'

Reprieve said it was in the process of issuing legal proceedings against the prime minister, home secretary, foreign secretary, defence secretary and attorney general.

The application for a judicial review alleges there is "compelling evidence" that "UK intelligence personnel have been engaged in activities amounting to complicity in torture and that the inevitable inference is that such activities have been in conformity with unlawful promulgated policies and guidance" since at least 2002.

Richard Stein, partner at Leigh Day & Co, which is issuing the proceedings on behalf of Reprieve, said the allegation was that the UK was "complicit" by working alongside authorities which did use torture.

Mr Stein said: "The case is to challenge the legality of the policy that currently exists in relation to the way that British agents should relate to other states and other states' agents when they are involved in interrogating, torturing, rendering people around the world, as we know happens."

He added: "The torturer is inside the room torturing the person and the British agents are outside passing bits of information and questions under the door. That, Reprieve considers, is unlawful."

Secret guidance

The government is already under pressure over what the intelligence and security services knew of the US treatment of some detainees.

Earlier this month, former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed won a major legal victory when the Court of Appeal ordered the government to publish what intelligence officers knew about the Ethiopian-born man's mistreatment in Pakistan in 2002.

US interrogators deprived Mr Mohamed of sleep, shackled him and threatened that he would be "disappeared".

“ We did not practise mistreatment or torture then and do not do so now, nor do we collude in torture or encourage others to torture on our behalf ”
Jonathan Evans, MI5
He was later interviewed by an MI5 officer - but then secretly moved by the CIA to Morocco where the US courts say he was tortured.

He and six other men are already suing the government saying it was complicit in their alleged mistreatment.

Now the legal charity involved in the cases says it will try to force the government to publish the secret guidance given to officers over the last eight years.

Last year Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged to publish the new guidance to intelligence officers on detention and on interviews with detainees overseas to show that the security services opposed torture. But that new guidance has still not been published.

The guidance was originally issued in 2002 and then expanded two years later. Neither of these two documents has been published.

The fresh guidance is currently with the Intelligence and Security Committee, which answers to the prime minister.

Unprecedented article

Clive Stafford-Smith, of Reprieve, said that the government was not answering critical questions about the evidence of alleged complicity in torture overseas.

The campaign group said "diverse examples" would be used to support the legal action.

"Advice given to agents cannot sensibly be deemed 'classified', as disclosing legal advice hardly betrays a national secret," said Mr Stafford-Smith.

"Rather, depending on what the policy was, it exposes those who sanctioned the advice to immense embarrassment.

"Equally, it cannot take a year to come up with new advice - we could have written it for them in an afternoon."

Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, wrote an unprecedented article to a national newspaper following the Binyam Mohamed ruling.

The article said the Intelligence and Security Committee had already found that the security service had been slow to react to the US's mistreatment of detainees after 9/11.

He added: "We did not practise mistreatment or torture then and do not do so now, nor do we collude in torture or encourage others to torture on our behalf."

Quote:Court lifts ban on Binyam wording



The Court of Appeal has decided to publish a paragraph criticising MI5 in a judgement involving former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed.

A senior judge had altered the text following protests from government lawyers who saw the draft version.

The appeal judges said the robust criticism contained in the original wording should be published "in the interests of open justice".

The foreign secretary has previously denied officials had acted unfairly.

Quote:February 26, 2010
Top judge speaks out against MI5 over Binyam Mohamed torture row
By John Aston and Cathy Gordon, PA
One of the country's leading judges today published strong criticism of the British Security Service over former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed, despite Government objections.

Lord Neuberger, the Master of the Rolls, said denials by the Security Service of knowing of any ill treatment of US terror suspect detainees "does not seem to have been true" in Mr Mohamed's case.

The judge ruled the evidence showed that "some Security Services officials appear to have a dubious record relating to actual involvement, and frankness about any such involvement, with the mistreatment of Mr Mohamed when he was held at the behest of US officials".

The judge's remarks led to further calls for a full public inquiry into allegations that the UK has been complicit in torture.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson said: "I am deeply disappointed that the court has decided to criticise the Security Service in this way."

Mr Mohamed says he was tortured in Pakistan in 2002 while held by the US, with the knowledge of MI5.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband asked the Court of Appeal to block a High Court decision to publish a seven-paragraph summary of what MI5 knew about his ill treatment.

The summary showed MI5 was aware Mr Mohamed was being continuously deprived of sleep, threatened with rendition and being subjected to "significant mental stress and suffering".

Earlier this month, Lord Neuberger and two other top appeal judges - Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice, and Sir Anthony May, President of the Queen's Bench Division, rejected Mr Miliband's appeal against the High Court summary becoming public knowledge.

A dispute erupted between the Government and the court over a key paragraph in a draft version of Lord Neuberger's judgment.

Jonathan Sumption QC, representing the Foreign Secretary, said paragraph 168 went "well beyond" anything found by the High Court judges.

As a result the judge altered the paragraph - leading to accusations that he was "watering down" his ruling - and said he would further reconsider it.

Today he reverted to the original paragraph, with limited modifications, saying its findings were "fully supported" by the evidence.

He removed a reference to the Foreign Office "which was not really justified" and made it clear that his observations "relate to the facts of this case".

In the "final version" of paragraph 168 the judge said the Security Services had denied knowing of any ill-treatment of US detainees.

"Yet, in this case, that does not seem to have been true: as the evidence showed, some Security Services officials appear to have a dubious record relating to actual involvement - and frankness about any such involvement - with the mistreatment of Mr Mohamed when he was held at the behest of US officials," said the judge.

The good faith of the Foreign Secretary was not in question, but he had prepared public interest immunity certificates (PIIs) - used to keep information secret - "partly, possibly largely, on the basis of information and advice provided by Security Services personnel".

The judge concluded: "Regrettably, but inevitably, this must raise the question whether any statement in the certificates on an issue concerning the mistreatment of Mr Mohamed can be relied on, especially when the issue is whether contemporaneous communications to the Security Services about such mistreatment should be revealed publicly.

"Not only is there some reason for distrusting such a statement, given that it is based on Security Services' advice and information, because of previous, albeit general, assurances in 2005, but also the Security Services have an interest in the suppression of such information."

The Lord Chief Justice stressed there had been no "ministerial interference" in today's appeal.

He warned that "a damaging myth may develop to the effect that, in this case, a Minister of the Crown, or counsel acting for him, was somehow permitted to interfere with the judicial process.

"This did not happen, and it is critical to the integrity of the administration of justice that if any such misconception may be taking root it should be eradicated."

The judge said perhaps the most obvious indication that there was no such ministerial interference was the fact that five judges - two in the High Court and three in the Appeal Court - had all rejected the Foreign Secretary's claim for public interest immunity in respect of the seven paragraphs summarising the information from MI5.

Later the Home Secretary said: "The Government respects the right of the judges to reach their own judgment. But it is also right that, where we disagree with their conclusions, we say so.

"The UK's security and intelligence services do outstanding work to keep us safe against a real and continuing terrorist threat, and they do so under proper control and oversight - by ministers, the Intelligence and Security Committee, the commissioners and, where necessary, the courts".

Mr Johnson said allegations regarding one MI5 officer alleged to have known of Mr Mohamed's ill treatment, referred to as Witness B, had been referred by the Government to the Attorney General.

They were being investigated by the police and were part of a claim for civil damages before the High Court.

He said: "It is vital that these legal processes, which will provide the right level of independent scrutiny, are not undermined and that we allow them to come to their own conclusions.

"We totally reject any suggestion that the Security Services have a systemic problem in respecting human rights.

"We wholly reject too that they have any interest in suppressing or withholding information from ministers or the courts."

But Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: "This has been a shameful business.

"Complicity in torture is bad enough without repeat and strenuous attempts to cover it up.

"Nonetheless despite the Government's efforts, the Court of Appeal has defended principles prohibiting torture and protecting open justice that are essential to the rule of law."

Cori Crider, legal director at Reprieve, praised the judges for showing "the utmost integrity and concern for the public interest", but said a full public inquiry was now necessary.

She said: "Now that (paragraph 168) has been largely restored, questions linger.

"Of course Witness B acted inappropriately - but who was directing Witness B in Pakistan? What policies allowed such complicity in torture?

"How many cases like Binyam's were there? We know of Shaker Aamer, Rangzieb Ahmed, and the list seems to grow by the day.

"Only a full public inquiry will answer the public's concerns about what has been done in our name."

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Edward Davey said: "The suggestion that there were others in the Security Services involved in unacceptable practices makes the need for a full judicial inquiry irrefutable."

Former shadow home secretary David Davis said the case for a judicial inquiry "is now unanswerable".

He said: "This case has been made by everybody from the Joint Committee on Human Rights through countless interested NGOs, to the Government's own Equality and Human Rights Commission, as well as all Opposition parties.

"It is now time to clear this matter up once and for all, both to re-establish Britain's moral reputation, and allow agencies to put this behind them in continuing their battle against terrorism."

Shadow foreign secretary William Hague said: "It is deeply regrettable that a cloud has been cast over the intelligence services who work with British Governments to keep our country safe and are a vital line of defence.

"The Government have so far failed to draw a line under allegations of British complicity in torture and to chart a clear course for the future.

"The matter has been dragged through the courts, relations with the United States have been strained, and public confidence has been eroded.

"The Prime Minister promised a year ago to publish the guidance given to Security Service officials and to refer allegations of complicity in torture to the Attorney General. There has been a year of silence since then.

"The guidance must be published as a matter of urgency. The Government must do everything possible to restore public confidence."

Mr Davey added: "The implication that David Miliband had the wool pulled over his eyes is deeply embarrassing for the Foreign Secretary.

"However, the suggestion that he acted in good faith means the real questions need to be answered by others in Government. Did former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw sign off on the 'coercive techniques' referred to in the judgment?"

In response, a spokesman for Mr Straw - now Justice Secretary - said: "There has at no stage been any suggestion whatever of any impropriety by Mr Straw in respect of his responsibility for the Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ during the period that he served as Foreign Secretary from 2001 to 2006.

"This absence of any suggestion follows the examination by the Intelligence and Security Committee and the courts of volumes of papers covering the period when Mr Straw was Foreign Secretary.

"Everybody understands the concerns about Mr Mohamed's treatment, but this call by the Liberal Democrats is wide of the mark and frankly gratuitous.

"As the Prime Minister has said, the Government condemns torture without reservation and is not, and never will be, complicit in its use."

Quote:Ex-MI5 head: US concealed torture
Wednesday, March 10 08:39 am

A former head of MI5 has claimed that US intelligence agencies had deliberately concealed their mistreatment of terror suspects. Skip related content

Baroness Manningham-Buller said she had only learnt that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been waterboarded after retiring from the Security Service in 2007.

Her intervention, to a selected gathering at the House of Lords, followed intense controversy over British agents' alleged collusion with US counterparts employing torture techniques.

It erupted last month after the disclosure of what was described as the "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of Binyam Mohamed, the British resident formerly held at Guantanamo Bay.

Ministers and current MI5 chief Jonathan Evans have insisted there was no collusion by UK security forces. But there are enduring questions about exactly when they learnt that the US apparently changed its rules on torture after the 9/11 attacks.

The security services are also under pressure over claims that they have a "culture of suppression" about such matters. But Lady Manningham-Buller said it had been the US that had been "very keen to conceal from us what was happening".

She added: "The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing."

In a lecture at an event organised by the Mile End Group, she said she had wondered, in 2002 and 2003, how the US had been able to supply the UK with intelligence from Mohammed. "I said to my staff, 'Why is he talking?' because our experience of Irish prisoners, Irish terrorists, was that they never said anything," she said.

"They said, well, the Americans say he is very proud of his achievements when questioned about it. It wasn't actually until after I retired that I read that, in fact, he had been waterboarded 160 times."

Lady Manningham-Buller said the Government had lodged "protests" with the Americans about its treatment of detainees, but refused to elaborate. She went on to say that the allegations of complicity in torture could disrupt MI5's work.