Torture Flights: What No. 10 Knew And Tried To Cover Up

Torture flights: what No 10 knew and tried to cover up
Leaked memo reveals strategy to deny knowledge of detention centres

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terro...689856,00.html

Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday January 19, 2006
The Guardian

The government is secretly trying to stifle attempts by MPs to find out what it knows about CIA "torture flights" and privately admits that people captured by British forces could have been sent illegally to interrogation centres, the Guardian can reveal. A hidden strategy aimed at suppressing a debate about rendition - the US practice of transporting detainees to secret centres where they are at risk of being tortured - is revealed in a briefing paper sent by the Foreign Office to No 10.

The document shows that the government has been aware of secret interrogation centres, despite ministers' denials. It admits that the government has no idea whether individuals seized by British troops in Iraq or Afghanistan have been sent to the secret centres.

Dated December 7 last year, the document is a note from Irfan Siddiq, of the foreign secretary's private office, to Grace Cassy in Tony Blair's office. It was obtained by the New Statesman magazine, whose latest issue is published today.

It was drawn up in response to a Downing Street request for advice "on substance and handling" of the controversy over CIA rendition flights and allegations of Britain's connivance in the practice.

"We should try to avoid getting drawn on detail", Mr Siddiq writes, "and to try to move the debate on, in as front foot a way we can, underlining all the time the strong anti-terrorist rationale for close cooperation with the US, within our legal obligations."

The document advises the government to rely on a statement by Condoleezza Rice last month when the US secretary of state said America did not transport anyone to a country where it believed they would be tortured and that, "where appropriate", Washington would seek assurances.

The document notes: "We would not want to cast doubt on the principle of such government-to-government assurances, not least given our own attempts to secure these from countries to which we wish to deport their nationals suspected of involvement in terrorism: Algeria etc."

The document says that in the most common use of the term - namely, involving real risk of torture - rendition could never be legal. It also says that the US emphasised torture but not "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment", which binds Britain under the European convention on human rights. British courts have adopted a lower threshold of what constitutes torture than the US has.

The note includes questions and answers on a number of issues. "Would cooperating with a US rendition operation be illegal?", it asks, and gives the response: "Where we have no knowledge of illegality, but allegations are brought to our attention, we ought to make reasonable enquiries". It asks: "How do we know whether those our armed forces have helped to capture in Iraq or Afghanistan have subsequently been sent to interrogation centres?" The reply given is: "Cabinet Office is researching this with MoD [Ministry of Defence]. But we understand the basic answer is that we have no mechanism for establishing this, though we would not ourselves question such detainees while they were in such facilities".

Ministers have persistently taken the line, in answers to MPs' questions, that they were unaware of CIA rendition flights passing through Britain or of secret interrogation centres.

On December 7 - the date of the leaked document - Charles Kennedy, then Liberal Democrat leader, asked Mr Blair when he was first made aware of the American rendition flights, and when he approved them. Mr Blair replied: "In respect of airports, I do not know what the right hon gentleman is referring to."

On December 22, asked at his monthly press conference about the US practice of rendition, the prime minister told journalists: "It is not something that I have ever actually come across until this whole thing has blown up, and I don't know anything about it." He said he had never heard of secret interrogation camps in Europe. But Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, recently disclosed that Whitehall inquiries had shown Britain had received rendition requests from the Clinton administration.

In 1998, Mr Straw, then home secretary, agreed to one request, but turned down another because the individual concerned was to be transported to Egypt. He agreed that Mohammed Rashed Daoud al-Owhali, suspected of involvement in the bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, could be transported to the US for trial via Stansted, according to the briefing paper. Owhali was subsequently given a life sentence.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, which has demanded an inquiry into allegations of British collusion in rendition flights, said she was "deeply disappointed" by the memo. "The government seems more concerned about spinning than investigating our concerns," she said. She has written to Mr Straw saying the government must now give its full support to the inquiry conducted, at Liberty's behest, by the chief constable of Greater Manchester, Michael Todd.

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman, said Mr Blair had fully endorsed Ms Rice's statement, yet the prime minister had clear advice that it might have been deliberately worded to allow for cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. "I am submitting an urgent question to the speaker and expect the foreign secretary to come to parliament to explain the government's position," he said. "Evasion can no longer be sustained: there is now overwhelming evidence to support a full public inquiry into rendition."

Andrew Tyrie, Conservative MP for Chichester and chairman of the parliamentary group on rendition, said last night: "All the experts who have looked at Rice's assurances have concluded that they are so carefully worded as to be virtually worthless. Relying on them, as the government appears to be doing, speaks volumes". He said his committee would pursue the issue.

Straw denies cover-up of rendition flights
Guardian and Agencies

The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, today denied there had been any cases of so-called extraordinary rendition involving the UK about which parliament had not been informed.

Mr Straw was forced to rush out a written ministerial statement after the leak of a memo from the Foreign Office to No 10 suggested that there could have been more requests from the United States than the four about which parliament has been told.

Mr Straw said in his statement today: "That is not the case."

The memo, obtained by the New Statesman and reported in the Guardian yesterday, advised No 10 to avoid getting drawn into detail over renditions and said they were illegal in most circumstances. It said the government did not know how many times the US had asked to use British airports for rendition flights.

Rendition and extraordinary rendition are terms for transporting a suspect from a third country either back to the US, or on to a third country, outside normal extradition procedures. The practice has provoked international concern that detainees could be tortured in the countries to which they are sent.

"Some media reports over the last 48 hours, based on a leaked government document, have suggested that the government may be aware that there have been cases of 'extraordinary rendition' through UK territory or airspace about which it has not informed parliament," Mr Straw said in his statement to MPs today.

"This is not the case. I have given parliament clear answers, updated as information has become available to me."

The leaked memo, written before Mr Straw's answer to MPs on December 12 last year, said the security service (MI5) had identified two cases and went on: "The papers we have unearthed so far suggest there could be more such cases."

Mr Straw stressed in his statement today: "We have found no evidence of detainees being rendered through the UK or overseas territories since 11 September 2001. We have found no evidence of detainees being rendered through the UK or overseas territories since 1997 where there were substantial grounds to believe there was a real risk of torture.

"There were four cases in 1998 where the US requested permission to render one or more detainees through the UK or overseas territories. In two of these cases, records show the government granted the US request, and refused two others."

The foreign secretary gave no reasons why the requests had been refused.

Mr Straw added Britain had made clear "that we will grant permission only if we are satisfied that the rendition would accord with UK law and our international obligations". He said the UK had also spelled out to the US what it believed its international obligations to be under the United Nations convention against torture.

Mr Straw: "We are also clear that the US would not render a detainee through UK territory or airspace (including overseas territories) without our permission. As noted above, the US has sought such permission in the past. The government is committed to fulfilling its obligations under international law. I have sought to keep the House informed of developments and shall do so again if new information comes to light."

There have been widespread concerns that the CIA has been seizing suspects around the world and flying them for questioning at so-called "black sites" in eastern Europe or in countries such as Jordan and Egypt where torture is prevalent.

The prime minister's official spokesman said that two cases from 1998 identified in the memorandum had been disclosed in a Commons statement by Mr Straw last month. The first involved Mohammed Rashed Daoud al-Owhali, who was transported from Kenya to the US via Stansted airport to stand trial for the Nairobi embassy bombing. The request was approved by Mr Straw - then home secretary - along with a second suspect who did not, in the event, travel.

In the second case, the request from the US authorities was turned down because it involved transporting a suspect to Egypt.

In a subsequent statement last week, Mr Straw said the Foreign Office had finished searching its records and found one further case - again from 1998 - when ministers turned down a request for a flight carrying two detainees to the US to refuel in the UK.

However, MPs expressed concern at a passage in the leaked memo, apparently sent to prepare Mr Blair for prime minister's questions on December 7, advising him not to go into detail on the issue.

The memo, drawn up by a member of Mr Straw's private office, warned that rendition was illegal under both UK and international law, except in certain rare, "tightly defined" cases and that co-operating with US rendition operations could also be unlawful. Any case where there was a "real risk" of torture could never be legal, it said.

It suggested that, in answering questions, ministers could point to comments by US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, stating that the US does not transport people to countries when it believed they would be tortured.

However, it also highlighted a loophole in US law, which meant the US applied a less rigorous definition of "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment" than the UN convention against torture.

"It is not clear whether in practice this gives the US scope to use techniques which would otherwise constitute torture," it said.