Torture appeal lost by UK government

[Peter Presland]

The oh so predictable course of the British Establishment in damage limitation mode. It is like a broken bloody record - every time. Protect and defend 'The System' at ANY cost (to the poor bloody infantry). Provide immunity to its senior officers/power brokers; allow plod to harass, arrest and maybe even prosecute the odd minion or two.

Very reminiscent of what happened to the Directors of Matrix Churchill, Astra Holding, Sheffield Forgemaster etc to protect the corruption at the heart of the Thatcher government over the Arms to Iraq scandal of the early nineties too - I've just finished that Gerald James Book 'In the Public Interest' and all kinds of bells are ringing.

The stench really is overpowering.

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."