Democratic accountability of the security and intelligence agencies is ‘woefully deficient†and an independent inquiry must be set up to investigate allegations of their complicity in torture, a cross-party group of senior British MPs and peers said this week.
In a stinging report, prompted by disclosures in the Guardian, they aid that in view of the detailed allegations, ministers can no longer get away with repeating standard denials.
They said the government must immediately publish instructions given to officers of the UK security service, MI5, and the UK secret service, MI6, on the detention and interrogation of suspects abroad.
The report, by Parliament’s joint committee on human rights, falls short of stating that the security and intelligence agencies have been complicit in torture, thereby breaching British domestic and international law.
Andrew Dismore, the committee’s chairperson, said: ‘If the allegations are true, they amount to complicity. They have not been tested, but given the scale and number, simply to issue a blanket denial is not adequate. That is why we are calling for an independent inquiry.â€
Among a list of actions that it said would amount to complicity in torture, and therefore be in breach of the UK’s legal obligations, the report included ‘the provision of questions to — a foreign intelligence service to be put to a detainee who has been, is being, or likely to be torturedâ€.
It also included ‘the systematic reception of information known or thought likely to have been obtained from detainees subjected to tortureâ€. It said: ‘For the purposes of state responsibility for complicity in torture — ‘complicity’ means simply one state giving assistance to another state in the commission of torture, or acquiescing in such torture, in the knowledge — of the circumstances of the torture, which is or has been taking place.â€
The Guardian passed to the committee the names of seven of 11 British or dual nationals detained in Pakistan, where British agencies, it said, colluded in, or knew about, their torture or mistreatment.
The newspaper also alerted the committee to the case of Binyam Mohamed, a UK resident who, the high court has heard, was held incommunicado in Pakistan before being tortured in Morocco, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
In a judgment revised after the disclosure of fresh evidence from MI5 the high court said on Friday it was now clear that MI5 ‘knew the circumstances†of Mohamed’s secret detention at ‘a covert locationâ€, now known to be Morocco.
In their judgment Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones also revealed that MI5 sent the ‘United States authorities†— believed to be the CIA — questions to ask Mohamed.
Over more than two years MI5 received five reports from the US about Mohamed and gave the US a list of 70 further questions to be put to him The high court judgment contains evidence that appears to come clearly under the complicity criteria spelled out in the report.
The parliamentary report said: ‘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 cross the line into complicity.
‘Our experience in 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 matters is woefully deficient— ‘There is now no other way to restore public confidence in the intelligence services than by setting up an independent inquiry.â€
The Guardian, in a memo to the committee which was published in its report, said: ‘The increasingly routine reliance on in-camera hearings and closed judgments threatens to close forever a whole chapter of evidence relating to the British intelligence services’ practices and government policy on those held in other jurisdictions, who are often subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.â€
It said the investigation into allegations of serious crimes such as collusion in torture ‘must be recognised as a legitimate and important area of journalistic inquiryâ€.
The UK’s foreign office told the committee: ‘We unreservedly condemn the use of torture and our clear policy is not to participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment for any purpose.†—