Torture appeal lost by UK government

[Magda Hassan]

The men committee could have asked about MI5 and torture

A growing number of young British Muslims say they have been tortured overseas with the apparent complicity of MI5 or MI6 officers. Not all are still considered terrorism suspects – many were released without charge – but the intelligence and security committee has never sought to interview any of them, or their lawyers. They include the men below

• Ian Cobain
  
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 15 February 2010 09.14 GMT
  
• Article history
  

Alam Ghafoor. Photograph: Christopher Thomond

Alam Ghafoor, 39

Company director from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire
Held in Dubai shortly after the July 2005 bomb attacks on the London transport network, Ghafoor says he was beaten, deprived of sleep and forced to assume stressful positions for days on end. He was told he had been detained at the request of the British authorities and questioned only about the bombings. After being released and allowed to fly home, he used data protection laws to obtain copies of telegrams between the British embassy and the Foreign Office that showed consular officials were forced to ask people other than the Dubai authorities for permission to see him. The identities of these people were blacked out.
Tahir Shah, 42


Tahir Shah was detained in Pakistan shortly after the July 2005 bombings, while filming a documentary. Writer and broadcaster from London
Son of renowned Sufi writer Idries Shah. Detained in Pakistan shortly after the July 2005 bombings, while filming a *documentary. Hooded, threatened and interrogated in torture chamber. Released after 16 days and deported. Questioned on arrival at Heathrow by a man he believes to have been an MI5 officer. This man handed back the UK passport taken by Pakistani interrogators.
Rangzieb Ahmed, 34

Rangzieb Ahmed was convicted of being a member of al-Qaida. Photograph: AFP/Getty Islamist terrorist from Rochdale, Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester police (GMP) allowed him to fly from Manchester to Islamabad in 2006, and tipped off *Pakistani authorities that he was on his way. MI6 told Pakistan's notorious Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) that Ahmed was a dangerous terrorist and suggested he be detained. MI5 and GMP drew up a list of questions for ISI to put to him. Three of Ahmed's fingernails were subsequently ripped out. Deported to Manchester and successfully *prosecuted, almost entirely on basis of evidence gathered in UK before he had been allowed to fly to Pakistan. The home secretary, Alan Johnson, pointed out last week that a judge ruled that the British had not "outsourced" Ahmed's torture. Johnson overlooked the fact that the judge highlighted a degree of British "complicity" in Ahmed's torture, and that the judge's full ruling is being kept in a safe installed at Manchester crown court – at the request of MI5.
Jamil Rahman, 32


Former civil servant from south Wales
Detained in Bangladesh by officers of that country's Directorate General of Forces Intelligence, for questioning about his twin brother, an associate of Rangzieb Ahmed. Says his interrogators were British, and that whenever they were not satisfied by his answers they would leave the room and he would be beaten, slapped and threatened. Says his wife was held in the next room and he would be threatened she would be raped. She corroborates this. Released without charge, but remains deeply traumatised, and is now suing the Home Office.
Tariq Mahmood, 36


Taxi driver from Birmingham
Mahmood was abducted by the ISI in Rawalpindi in October 2003, and held in the same secret prison at which Amin was later detained. His family say he was interrogated by both British and US officials after being tortured.
His family's solicitor in Birmingham wrote to Jack Straw, the then foreign secretary, and to the British high commission in Islamabad, seeking information on his whereabouts. Mahmood was released without charge four months later. Mahmood's brother Asif says: "Everyone mistreated him in a bad way. It was the British, it was MI5, and it was the FBI." Mahmood remains in Pakistan, where friends and neighbours say he has been unable to recover his UK passport from the high commission.
Moazzam Begg, 41


Moazzam Begg, a former detainee of Guantánamo Bay. Photograph: Guardian From Birmingham
Detained in Pakistan in February 2002 and questioned by British and US *intelligence officers before being rendered to Afghanistan and then Guantánamo Bay. Questioned by the British again at Guantánamo. Begg is one of several British former inmates of the camp who are now suing MI5, MI6, the Foreign Office and the Home Office.
Salahuddin Amin, 34


Salahuddin Amin was given a life sentence for planning a series of bomb attacks. Photograph: EPA Convicted terrorist from Luton, Bedfordshire
Held for 10 months by Pakistan's ISI and questioned about a terrorist plot against the UK. Interrogated 11 times by MI5 officers during this period, according to evidence disclosed by the prosecution at his eventual Old Bailey trial. Says he was beaten, whipped, suspended from the ceiling, deprived of sleep and threatened with an electric drill. An Old Bailey judge ruled that his treatment was "physically oppressive" and unlawful, but fell short of torture. Human Rights Watch has been told by Pakistani interrogators that Amin's account was essentially accurate.
Binyam Mohamed

Claimed he was tortured after being detained in Pakistan in 2002. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP British resident living in west London
Detained in Pakistan in 2002 as he tried to leave on a false passport and questioned by CIA. MI5 told the intelligence and security committee (ISC) it had no reason to believe he was being tortured before sending an officer known as Witness B to interrogate him. High court later heard that before Witness B flew to Pakistan the CIA had passed 42 documents to MI5 detailing the mistreatment of Mohamed and the effect on his mind. The matter is now the subject of a police investigation. ISC chair Kim Howells, a former minister with responsibility for overseas counter-terrorism, insists MI5 has done nothing wrong – a statement that has triggered calls for reform of the ISC.
Azhar Khan, 27


From Slough, Berkshire
Detained on arrival at Cairo airport in July 2008, and held for a week, during which time, he says, he was hooded, starved, beaten, subjected to electric shocks, forced to stand for days at a time and forced to hear others being tortured. Says he was questioned only about friends and associates in Britain, some of them convicted terrorists. Says Egyptians asked him about discrepancies between a statement he had once given to Scotland Yard counter-terrorism detectives and subsequent comments he made during a visit to a friend in prison. Released without charge but still suffering physical and *psychological effects. Asked about his ordeal, the Foreign Office issued a series of evasive and misleading statements. Khan's case was highlighted by a United Nations human rights and torture special report *published two weeks ago.
MS, 28


Doctor from west London
Detained in Karachi after the July 2005 bombings. Held for two months in a building opposite the British deputy high commission's offices, where he says he was beaten, deprived of sleep, whipped, and forced to watch others being tortured. Questioned by two British intelligence officers at the end of his ordeal. His father says officials at the deputy high commission claimed for weeks that they had no idea where his son was. Human Rights Watch has been told by the Pakistani interrogators that intelligence officers at the commission were "breathing down our necks" for information. MS was released without charge, and now works at a hospital on the south coast of England. Remains deeply traumatised and is terrified of MI5.
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