Inquiry claims security services complicit over torture case

UK security services need an independent inquiry as it was complicit in the torture of terrorism suspects, says MPs and peers, according to the BBC.

The Joint Human Rights Committee (JHRC) said it was unable to establish whether British officers were involved in mistreatment of suspects.

The committee also criticised ministers and the head of MI5 for refusing to testify at parliamentary hearing on the claims.

Following the disclosure of the publication named “A parliamentary report calling for an independent inquiry into allegations of security and intelligence agency complicity in torture” in the Guardian, the JHRC says that in view of the detailed allegation, minister can no longer get away with repeating standard denials.

The stinging report says the government must immediately publish instructions given to the security services MI5 and MI6 officers on the detention and interrogation of suspects abroad.

The report also accuses the security and intelligence agencies of complicity in torture, which would breach British domestic and international law, the Guardian reports.

However, the Foreign Affairs Minister Ivan Lewis said “We neither engage in. collude with or condone torture,” according to the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Asked whether Britain was complicit in torture, he said: “I don’t believe that that’s the case. We stand very firmly in saying that torture is not acceptable. We make it clear to those countries that we work with.

“What we can’t do is simply turn away from our responsibilities to the security of the British people.”

However, the Tory MP David Davis said he had “no doubts” that there had been “clear violations of the UK’s international legal obligations”, says the Guardian.

According to the report published in the Guardian, it says: “If the government engaged in an arrangement with a country that was known to torture in a widespread way and turned a blind eye to what was going on, systematically receiving and/or relying on the information but not physically participating in the torture, that might well across the line into complicity.

“Our experience over the past year is that ministers are determined to avoid parliamentary scrutiny and accountability on these matters, refusing requests to give oral evidence, providing a standard answer to some of our written questions, which fails to address the issues, and ignoring other questions entirely.

“Ministers should not be able to act in this way. The fact that they can do so confirms that the system for ministerial accountability for security and intelligence is woefully deficient…There is now no other way to restore public confidence in the intelligence services that by setting up an independent inquiry.”

The case of Binyam Mohamed was altered to the JHRC by the Guardian newspaper, as a torture complicity example.

Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian, was granted refugee status in Britain in 1994, He was detained in Pakistan in 2002 on suspicion of involvement in terrorism.

From what the high Court has heard, he was then being tortured after “rendered” to Morocco, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.