Iain Lobban the director of GCHQ (Reuters/UK Parliament via REUTERS TV)
The head of GCHQ, Britain’s electronic intelligence agency, will step down by year’s end, the Foreign Office said. Officials denied his departure was linked to public outrage over mass surveillance revelations by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Iain Lobban, 53, has served as GCHQ’s director since June 2008. His departure was officially described as a long-considered move, but comes just a few weeks after he was summoned to answer MPs’ questions about surveillance operations in an unprecedented televised open session of the UK parliament’s intelligence and security committee, along with the heads of MI5 and MI6.
“Iain Lobban is doing an outstanding job as director of GCHQ,” a spokesperson said. “Today is simply about starting the process of ensuring we have a suitable successor in place before he moves on, planned at the end of the year.”
Officials dismissed suggestions his decision was influenced by revelations made by Snowden, a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, whose leaks revealed details of a massive global surveillance network run by the NSA and other members of the so-called Five Eyes alliance – the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
Despite accounting for the bulk of Britain’s three intelligence agencies’ combined budget of £2 billion, GCHQ had previously attracted far less public attention than MI5 or MI6.
It was damaging media revelations regarding wide-scale collaboration between GCHQ and the NSA that resulted in Lobban being called to appear before the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee alongside the heads of MI5 and MI6 in November.
At the hearing, Lobban accused Snowden’s disclosures of seriously damaging Britain’s counter-terrorism efforts, saying extremists had discussed changing their communication methods following the revelations.
Critics, however, have accused GCHQ of working hand-in-hand with the NSA in massively intruding on the private communications of millions of citizens.
In June, the Guardian reported the NSA had secretly gained access to the network of cables which carry the world’s phone calls and internet traffic, and, by 2010, was able to boast the “biggest internet access” of any member of the Five Eyes alliance.
According to media reports, the NSA and GCHQ had a particularly close relationship, sharing troves of data in what Snowden called “the largest program of suspicionless surveillance in human history.”
Around 850,000 NSA employees and contractors with top secret clearance had access to the GCHQ databases, allowing them to view and analyze information garnered from such subtly titled programs as ‘Mastering the Internet (MTI)’ and ‘Global Telecoms Exploitation (GTE).’
Lobban, who first joined GCHQ in 1983, insisted in November that GCHQ did not spend its time “listening to the telephone calls or reading the e-mails of the majority” of British citizens.
Sir Iain’s counterpart at the NSA, General Keith Alexander, alongside his deputy, John Inglis, are also stepping down later this year.
There is also an ongoing campaign pushing for Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to resign for lying under oath by telling Congress the NSA did “not wittingly” collect data on hundreds of millions of Americans.
The British intelligence services must persuade public they are working on their behalf and not against them, revealing Julian Assange and Edward Snowden as the “self-seeking twerps” they are, Dame Stella Rimington has said.
Dame Stella, the former head of MI5, said openness about the role of the intelligence services would help public trust, after revelations about how information is gathered.
Speaking at the Henley Literary Festival, she added it may now be time for more “oversight” of the issue to reassure the public that the interception of communication was in their best interests, The Telegraph stated.
She said the “main issue” which now needed to be addressed is the “question of intrusion by our security services into everybody’s lives”, which the likes of Assange and Snowden use as an excuse to share secrets.
“It’s very important for our intelligence services to have a kind of oversight which people have confidence in,” she said.
“So that we can be quite sure that in giving them these powers we know they are being properly supervised in the way they are using them.
“I think that it may mean it is now the time to look again at the oversight. I have every confidence that the oversight is good and they’re not trying anything of the things they’re not supposed to.
“But it may be that we need something more complex to convince the nation our intelligence services are actually acting on their behalf and not acting against them.
“Assange and Snowden would be seen to be what I believe they are, which is self-seeking twerps.”
She added the service was now facing one of its most difficult periods ever, with “spreading extremism that is sucking in young people and providing them with some kind of ethic and ethos that is difficult for all of us to understand”.
Dame Stella, 78, also spoke of the difficulties of combining her former role with motherhood, disclosing she had feared for the safety of her daughters after her identity was revealed.
Speaking of the nature of state surveillance, she added: “My own opinion on this is that intelligence, in an increasingly complex and sophisticated world, has to be able to go where the threat is,” she said.
“In that the people who are seeking to harm us are increasingly sophisticated and are using more sophisticated ways of communicating in order to conceal their plans.
“Our intelligence services have to be given the tools to go there too in order to react.”
38-year-old was shot dead in front of his wife and children at home in 1989
Report by Sir Desmond de Silva QC published today reveals the killing might not have happened without the involvement of security agencies
Widow Geraldine has repeatedly called for a full public inquiry
David Cameron admitted there was collusion between police and loyalists responsible for the killing but only ordered a review of the case
David Cameron said the Government was ‘deeply sorry’ yesterday after a report into the murder of solicitor Pat Finucane found the security services colluded with the loyalist terrorists who killed him.
A review of the case by Sir Desmond de Silva, QC, found the father-of-three would probably not have been executed by the Ulster Defence Association without the encouragement of British agents.
Sir Desmond said state employees ‘furthered and facilitated’ the shooting of the 38-year-old, who was gunned down in front of his family in 1989.
But his finding that there was no evidence of an over-arching conspiracy involving ministers or security chiefs to target Mr Finucane sparked calls for a full public inquiry.
The widow of murdered Belfast solicitor Mr Finucane slammed a report into his death as ‘a sham… a whitewash… a confidence trick’.
Geraldine Finucane said Sir Desmond de Silva’s report was ‘not the truth’ and renewed her call for a full public inquiry.
In a Commons statement today, David Cameron admitted Mr Finucane might still be alive had police and state agencies not colluded in his murder.
The Prime Minister said the ‘appalling crime’ was the result of ‘shocking levels’ of state collusion and apologised on ‘behalf of the government and the whole country’.
The de Silva review into the 1989 killing found that state employees actively ‘furthered and facilitated’ the loyalist murder of Mr Finucane.
But the victim’s family have criticised the review, insisting only a full public inquiry will reveal the truth about his murder.
The 38-year-old was shot in front of his wife and children at home by loyalist paramilitaries from the Ulster Defence Association in 1989.
At a press conference after the review was published, Mrs Finucane accused the British Government of suppressing the truth while attempting to blame dead individuals and disbanded organisations while exonerating ministers, serving officers and existing security agencies.
Mrs Finucane said: ‘Yet another British government has engineered a suppression of the truth behind the murder of my husband, Pat Finucane.
‘At every turn it is clear that this report has done exactly what was required – to give the benefit of the doubt to the state, its Cabinet and ministers, to the Army, to the intelligence services and to itself.
‘At every turn, dead witnesses have been blamed and defunct agencies found wanting. Serving personnel and active state departments appear to have been excused.
‘The dirt has been swept under the carpet without any serious attempt to lift the lid on what really happened to Pat and so many others.
‘This report is a sham, this report is a whitewash, this report is a confidence trick dressed up as independent scrutiny and given invisible clothes of reliability. But most of all, most hurtful and insulting of all, this report is not the truth.’
Mr Cameron told the Commons said the review had found the Army and Special Branch had advance notice of a series of assassinations planned by the loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), but nothing was done.
The review found a ‘relentless’ effort to stop justice being done with Army officials giving the Ministry of Defence highly misleading and inaccurate information, Mr Cameron said.
Successive UK Governments are accused of a ‘wilful and abject failure’ to properly control secret agents within paramilitary groups.
Mr Cameron said: ‘It is really shocking this happened in our country. Collusion demonstrated beyond any doubt by Sir Desmond, which included the involvement of state agencies in murder, is totally unacceptable.
‘We do not defend our security forces or the many who have served in them with great distinction by trying to claim otherwise. Collusion should never, ever happen.
‘On behalf of the Government and the whole country, let me say again to the Finucane family I am deeply sorry.’
The review found no evidence that any Government was informed in advance of Mr Finucane’s murder or knew about the subsequent cover-up.
Sir Menzies Campbell, former Lib Dem leader, said he had never heard a statement in the Commons which filled him with more ‘revulsion’.
However, today Mr Finucane’s son John said he could not believe that there had been a public inquiry into newspapers hacking mobile phone messages but not into state involvement in the death of a British lawyer.
‘We’re talking about the murder of a lawyer in the UK,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
‘I rather flippantly announced last year that I thought it would have been easier if my father’s phone had been hacked rather than being killed. That’s not in any way to disrespect the victims of phone hacking.
‘But if we can have an inquiry into something as important as that, this case is the murder of a lawyer which the British government have admitted there was collusion, you don’t then deal with that, such a fundamental attack on democracy, by holding a non-statutory review behind closed doors.’
Mr Cameron has apologised more than once for the collusion between police and the loyalists responsible for the murder.
But Mr Finucane added today: ‘An apology is not in the correct running order. You don’t apologise for something but then not fully admit what it is you’re apologising for. I think that’s what the Prime Minister has done.’
The Finucane are unhappy that in 2001 the British government agreed during peace talks to meet honour for public inquiries into deaths. Of five recommended, four were held but in Mr Finucane’s case it was rejected.
Mr Funucane said: ‘The only case that’s outstanding is the case of my father. This review, we feel, is the embodiment of a broken promise of the British Government. We do feel that if they are sincere in dealing with this issue then they need to grasp this issue and they need to deal with it in a credible fashion.’
The loyalist paramilitaries shot Mr Finucane 14 times as he sat eating a Sunday meal at home, wounding his wife in the process. The couple’s three children witnessed the attack.
The former head of the Metropolitan Police in London, Sir John Stevens, has previously investigated collusion claims surrounding Mr Finucane’s death.
Shortly after starting the new inquiry, the Stevens team charged former Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch agent and loyalist quartermaster William Stobie in connection with the killing.
But in November 2001 the case collapsed and he was shot dead outside his home within weeks.
In September 2004 a loyalist accused of murdering the solicitor pleaded guilty to murdering him. Ken Barrett entered his plea at the beginning of his trial.
Prime Minister David Cameron, who ordered the de Silva review, will deliver a statement to the Commons
In 2004, retired Canadian judge Mr Justice Peter Cory, asked by the Government to investigate cases of suspected collusion, concluded that military and police intelligence knew of the Finucane murder plot and failed to intervene. He recommended a public inquiry.
That year, Barrett was sentenced to 22 years’ imprisonment.
In 2004, then Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy announced an inquiry under new legislation introduced in 2005.
The Finucane family opposed the Inquiries Act 2005, arguing it would allow government to interfere with the independence of a future inquiry because a government minister could rule whether the inquiry sat in public or private.
As a result, plans to establish an inquiry were halted by former Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain.
In October 2011, the Government ruled out a public inquiry into Mr Finucane’s murder but put forward a proposal for a leading QC to review the case. That review is to be published today.
Former Met Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens published the results of his four-year inquiry into Pat Finucane’s murder in 2003. The report confirmed that rogue elements in the security forces were involved in a deadly plot with loyalist paramilitaries to carry out a series of sectarian murders in Northern Ireland
Foreign Secretary William Hague is to stress the Government’s commitment to “drawing a line” under the alleged involvement of Britain’s intelligence agencies in the torture of terror suspects held overseas.
In a rare speech on the use of secret intelligence, Mr Hague will praise the agencies as “vital assets” which protect lives and make a “critical contribution” to safeguarding UK national interests.
He will, however, acknowledge that Britain’s reputation had been damaged by a series of claims that MI5 and MI6 officers had been complicit in the extraordinary rendition of terror suspects leading to their detention and torture overseas.
“The very making of these allegations undermined Britain’s standing in the world as a country that upholds international law and abhors torture,” he will say, according to advance extracts of his speech.
“As a Government we understand how important it is that we not only uphold our values and international law, but that we are seen to do so.”
Mr Hague will point to the establishment of the detainee inquiry under Sir Peter Gibson and the recent green paper proposals to enable the greater use of secret intelligence material in court cases as evidence of the Government’s commitment to tackle the issue.
“We are confident that taken together these changes represent the most comprehensive effort yet to address the complex issues thrown up by the need to protect our security in the 21st century, and to do so in a way that upholds our values and begins to restore public confidence,” he will say.
“So this will be our Government’s approach: drawing a line under the past, creating the right legislative framework so that the interests of national security and justice are reconciled, and drawing on the talents and capabilities of the intelligence agencies to support foreign policy and our national security.”
Both approaches have been controversial. Lawyers representing detainees have said they will boycott the Gibson inquiry complaining the hearings will largely be secret and it will not seek evidence from other countries involved.
The green paper has been criticised by human rights groups who have warned that it will lead to greater secrecy in the justice system, making it more difficult to hold the authorities to account for alleged abuses.
Lady Eliza Manningham-Buller uses BBC lecture to criticise ‘unhelpful’ term, attack Iraq invasion and suggest al-Qaida talks
Richard Norton-Taylor
MI5's former director general Lady Eliza Manningham-Buller during her 2011 BBC Reith lecture. Photograph: Jeff Overs/BBC/PA
Lady Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5, delivered a withering attack on the invasion of Iraq, decried the term “war on terror”, and held out the prospect of talks with al-Qaida.
Recording her first BBC Reith lecture on the theme, Securing Freedom, she made clear she believed the UK and US governments had not sufficiently understood the resentment that had been building up among Arab people, which was only compounded by the war against Iraq.
Before an audience which included Theresa May, the home secretary, she also said the 9/11 attacks were “a crime, not an act of war”. “So I never felt it helpful to refer to a war on terror”.
Young Arabs, she said, had no opportunity to choose their own rulers. “For them an external enemy was a unifying way to address some of their frustrations.”They were also united by the plight of Palestinians, a view that the west was exploiting their oil and supporting dictators. “It was wrong to say all terrorists belonged to al-Qaida,” added Manningham-Buller.
Pursuing a theme which some in the audience may have been astounded to hear from a former boss of MI5, she said terrorist campaigns – she mentioned Northern Ireland as an example – could not be solved militarily. She described the invasion of Iraq as a “distraction in the pursuit of al-Qaida”. She added: “Saddam Hussein was a ruthless dictator but neither he nor his regime had anything to do with 9/11.” The invasion, she said, “provided an arena for jihad”, spurring on UK citizens to resort to terror.
September 11 was a “monstrous crime” but it needed a considered response, an appreciation of the causes and roots of terrorism, she said later in answers to questions. She said she hoped there were those – she implied in western governments – who were considering having “talks with al-Qaida”.
Some way must be found of approaching them, she suggested, though she said she did not know how, at the moment, that could be done.
Manningham-Buller, who retired in 2007, attacked the invasion of Iraq in an interview with the Guardian in 2009. However, she has never before expressed such antipathy towards the prevailing policies and rhetoric of the government which she had to endure when she was in office. The lecture is to be broadcast on Radio 4 on 6 September, and entitled Terror.
Torture policy of MI5 and MI6 outlined in secret document – barrister’s opinion together with original article from The Guardian below:
No trade-off on torture
Now that the secret government policy on overseas torture is laid bare, it is even more imperative that the coalition clean house
Eric Metcalfe
Guantánamo military prison, where 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were used. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images
Would you risk someone being waterboarded in a foreign country for a week if you thought it might save 10 British lives? What if you thought it might save only one life, but you were not really sure? What would that be worth? Waterboarding for a day? The secret government policy uncovered in Ian Cobain’s story on Thursday does not set things out in such crude terms, but it is the kind of grotesque utilitarian calculus that is invited by its bland references to “balancing the risk of mistreatment” against “operational imperatives”.
Torture, according to the policy, was something the previous government would never knowingly condone or be complicit in. But when it came to situations in which the government did not know for certain, or did not especially want to, all bets were, apparently, off.
The revelation of the policy, in force until 2010, does not so much shock as confirm what many people had guessed: that the previous government had been prepared to run the risk that its co-operation with foreign intelligence agencies might – in certain, unspecified circumstances – result in people overseas being tortured.
The policy restated, of course, the official position: MI5 and MI6 “do not participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment” and “will not carry out any action which it is known will result” in such ill-treatment. The more difficult question is what was happening before 2010 in the many cases that didn’t involve such perfect knowledge, ie the real world.
Some things we do know. We know, for instance, that our intelligence services have over the past decade co-operated with a great many countries known to use torture: Jordan, Pakistan and Algeria, to name but a few. The evidence that these countries use torture has long been a matter of public record, amply documented by reports from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the US state department.
But it turns out knowledge is a tricky thing. In 2005, the then head of MI5 gave a witness statement in support of the government’s case before the House of Lords, from which it was clear that MI5 did not care to ask its foreign partners if particular information it received had been obtained using torture. Apparently it feared giving offence and thereby depriving the UK of valuable intelligence. As Lord Bingham noted in his dissenting opinion, “the foreign torturer does not boast of his trade”, and MI5 was content to turn a blind eye in order to keep the information coming in.
The cases in which British officials have been implicated in torture abroad are not just those involving evidence received by fax, however, where knowledge of interrogation techniques is easy enough to deny. In several cases, agents of MI5 and MI6 went to detention centres in places such as Pakistan, stood face to face with the victim of torture, asking questions with the torturers presumably nearby. It beggars belief to suppose that trained intelligence officials were unaware of the circumstances in which suspects were detained.
No doubt there are many qualities that go into making a good MI5 agent but naivety is not one of them. In any event, the previous government’s policy reveals that ministers were prepared to run the risk that torture might be used if the gains to the UK were acceptable enough: in other words, a ghoulish, foolish trade-off between torture and intelligence.
Will the coalition clean house as it promised? Labour’s policy accepted that British officials overseas were bound by our criminal law but not, apparently, our human rights standards. Sadly, the coalition government seems as unwilling as Labour in this regard, something borne out by itsrefusal to comply with article 3 of the European convention on human rights when setting up the Detainee Inquiry. Worst of all, the coalition has given itself the final say on what can and cannot be made public by the inquiry. The irony here is that, but for Thursday’s leak, Labour’s ruinous policy might never have seen the light of day.
Eric Metcalfe is a barrister and the director of human rights policy at Justice
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/aug/05/no-trade-off-on-torture, 5 August 2011
Original article by Ian Cobain:
UK’s secret policy on torture revealed
Exclusive: Document shows intelligence officers instructed to weigh importance of information sought against pain inflicted
A number of men said they were questioned by MI5 and MI6 officers after being tortured at Guantánamo Bay. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images
A top-secret document revealing how MI6 and MI5 officers were allowed to extract information from prisoners being illegally tortured overseas has been seen by the Guardian.
The interrogation policy – details of which are believed to be too sensitive to be publicly released at the government inquiry into the UK’s role in torture and rendition – instructed senior intelligence officers toweigh the importance of the information being sought against the amount of pain they expected a prisoner to suffer. It was operated by the British government for almost a decade.
A copy of the secret policy showed senior intelligence officers and ministers feared the British public could be at greater risk of a terrorist attack if Islamists became aware of its existence.
One section states: “If the possibility exists that information will be or has been obtained through the mistreatment of detainees, the negative consequences may include any potential adverse effects on national security if the fact of the agency seeking or accepting information in those circumstances were to be publicly revealed.
“For instance, it is possible that in some circumstances such a revelation could result in further radicalisation, leading to an increase in the threat from terrorism.”
The policy adds that such a disclosure “could result in damage to the reputation of the agencies”, and that this could undermine their effectiveness.
The fact that the interrogation policy document and other similar papers may not be made public during the inquiry into British complicity in torture and rendition has led to human rights groups and lawyers refusing to give evidence or attend any meetings with the inquiry team because it does not have “credibility or transparency”.
The decision by 10 groups – including Liberty, Reprieve and Amnesty International – follows the publication of the inquiry’s protocols, which show the final decision on whether material uncovered by the inquiry, led by Sir Peter Gibson, can be made public will rest with the cabinet secretary.
The inquiry will begin after a police investigation into torture allegations has been completed.
Some have criticised the appointment of Gibson, a retired judge, to head the inquiry because he previously served as the intelligence services commissioner, overseeing government ministers’ use of a controversial power that permits them to “disapply” UK criminal and civil law in order to offer a degree of protection to British intelligence officers committing crimes overseas. The government denies there is a conflict of interest.
The protocols also stated that former detainees and their lawyers will not be able to question intelligence officials and that all evidence from current or former members of the security and intelligence agencies, below the level of head, will be heard in private.
The document seen by the Guardian shows how the secret interrogation policy operated until it was rewritten on the orders of the coalition government last July.
It also:
• Acknowledged that MI5 and MI6 officers could be in breach of both UK and international law by asking for information from prisoners held by overseas agencies known to use torture.
• Explained the need to obtain political cover for any potentially criminal act by consulting ministers beforehand.
The secret interrogation policy was first passed to MI5 and MI6 officers inAfghanistan in January 2002 to enable them to continue questioning prisoners whom they knew were being mistreated by members of the US military.
It was amended slightly later that year before being rewritten and expanded in 2004 after it became apparent that a significant number of British Muslims, radicalised by the invasion of Iraq, were planning attacks against the UK.
The policy was amended again in July 2006 during an investigation of a suspected plot to bring down airliners over the Atlantic.
Entitled “Agency policy on liaison with overseas security and intelligence services in relation to detainees who may be subject to mistreatment”, it was given to intelligence officers handing over questions to be put to detainees.
Separate policy documents were issued for related matters, including intelligence officers conducting face-to-face interrogations.
The document set out the international and domestic law on torture, and explained that MI5 and MI6 do not “participate in, encourage or condone” either torture or inhuman or degrading treatment.
Intelligence officers were instructed not to carry out any action “which it is known” would result in torture. However, they could proceed when they foresaw “a real possibility their actions will result in an individual’s mistreatment” as long as they first sought assurances from the overseas agency.
Even when such assurances were judged to be worthless, officers could be given permission to proceed despite the real possibility that they would committing a crime and that a prisoner or prisoners would be tortured.
“When, not withstanding any caveats or prior assurances, there is still considered to be a real possibility of mistreatment and therefore there is considered to be a risk that the agencies’ actions could be judged to be unlawful, the actions may not be taken without authority at a senior level. In some cases, ministers may need to be consulted,” the document said.
In deciding whether to give permission, senior MI5 and MI6 management “will balance the risk of mistreatment and the risk that the officer’s actions could be judged to be unlawful against the need for the proposed action”.
At this point, “the operational imperative for the proposed action, such as if the action involves passing or obtaining life-saving intelligence” would be weighed against “the level of mistreatment anticipated and how likely those consequences are”.
Ministers may be consulted over “particularly difficult cases”, with the process of consulting being “designed to ensure that appropriate visibility and consideration of the risk of unlawful actions takes place”. All such operations must remain completely secret or they could put UK interests and British lives at risk.
Disclosure of the contents of the document appears to help explain the high degree of sensitivity shown by ministers and former ministers after the Guardianbecame aware of its existence two years ago.
Tony Blairevaded a series of questions over the role he played in authorising changes to the instructions in 2004, while the former home secretary David Blunkett maintained it was potentially libellous even to ask him questions about the matter.
As foreign secretary, David Milibandtold MPs the secret policy could never be made public as “nothing we publish must give succour to our enemies”.
Blair, Blunkett and the former foreign secretary Jack Straw also declined to say whether or not they were aware that the instructions had led to a number of people being tortured.
The head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, said that, in the post 9/11 world, his officers would be derelict in their duty if they did not work with intelligence agencies in countries with poor human rights records, while his opposite number at MI6, Sir John Sawers, spoke of the “real, constant, operational dilemmas” involved in such relationships.
Others, however, are questioning whether – in the words of Ken Macdonald, a former director of public prosecutions, “Tony Blair’s government was guilty of developing something close to a criminal policy”.
The Intelligence and Security Committee, the group of parliamentarians appointed by the prime minister to assist with the oversight of the UK’s intelligence agencies, is known to have examined the document while sitting in secret, but it is unclear what – if any – suggestions or complaints it made.
Paul Murphy, the Labour MP and former minister who chaired the committee in 2006, declined to answer questions about the matter.
A number of men, mostly British Muslims, have complained that they were questioned by MI5 and MI6 officers after being tortured by overseas intelligence officials in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan andGuantánamo Bay. Some are known to have been detained at the suggestion of British intelligence officers.
Others say they were tortured in places such as Egypt, Dubai, Morocco and Syria, while being interrogated on the basis of information that could only have been supplied by the UK.
A number were subsequently convicted of serious terrorism offences or subjected to control orders. Others returned to the UK and, after treatment, resumed their lives.
One is a businessman in Yorkshire, another a software designer living in Berkshire, and a third is a doctor practising on the south coast of England.
Some have brought civil proceedings against the British government, and a number have received compensation in out-of-court settlements, but others remain too scared to take legal action.
Scotland Yard has examined the possibility that one officer from MI5 and a second from MI6 committed criminal offences while extracting information from detainees overseas, and detectives are now conducting what is described as a “wider investigation into other potential criminal conduct”.
A new set of instructions was drafted after last year’s election, published on the orders of David Cameron, on the grounds that the coalition was “determined to resolve the problems of the past” and wished to give “greater clarity about what is and what is not acceptable in the future”.
Human rights groups pointed to what they said were serious loopholes that could permit MI5 and MI6 officers to remain involved in the torture of prisoners overseas.
Last week, the high court heard a challenge to the legality of the new instructions, brought by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Judgment is expected later in the year.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/aug/04/uk-allowed-interrogate-tortured-prisoners, 4 August 2011
The Daily Telegraph’s title for the same item:
“We covered up our involvement in torture. Now we must expose it”
