Rendition and torture denials coming unstuck (Barking and Dagenham Borough Liberal Democrats)

Barking and Dagenham Borough Liberal Democrats <barkinganddagenham@libdems4london.org.uk>

Rendition and torture denials coming unstuck

February 27, 2009 10:11 AM
Originally published by Sarah Ludford MEP

Defence Secretary John Hutton has made a parliamentary statement correcting previous misinformation about prisoners detained by UK forces in Iraq, including now admitting that 2 handed over to the US were 'renditioned' and remain in legal limbo in Afghanistan.

Liberal Democrat European justice & home affairs spokeswoman Sarah Ludford MEP was vice-chair of an inquiry by MEPs which reported 2 years ago that the UK was heavily implicated in complicity with torture flights. It expressed serious concern about 170 stopovers made by CIA-operated aircraft at UK airports, and pointed to apparent M15 complicity in the extraordinary rendition of British residents and citizens Bisher Al-Rawi, Jamil El-Banna, Binyam Mohammed and Martin Mubanga.

Sarah Ludford commented:

"We have now finally heard the first actual admission by the UK government of complicity in extraordinary rendition. Even if US assurances of no torture can be relied on - a big IF - there is still admission of UK official delivery into legal limbo with no 'habeas corpus' challenge to legality of detention but also no trial. If suspects are guilty of terrorism, they should be properly convicted."

"Then there is the very troubling revelation of negligence over accounting for people and observing the rule of law. Any denials have to be regarded as built on sand, since it is clear that UK officials and ministers really could not have cared less about what happened to detainees. What about the 3,000 handed over to the US authorities in 2003? It seems highly doubtful that these can be all be accounted for, they may well be in black holes too."

"These admissions are another forced breach in the 7-year wall of denials and cover-ups over UK official complicity in torture and secret detention. It is time to end the drip-feed of partial revelations and hold an independent inquiry, not an internal departmental review, which can establish the full sorry truth once and for all."

"Not only parliament but the British people are owed an apology by Gordon Brown for dragging Britain's reputation through the mud. I also look forward to an apology from Mr Hutton's predecessor Geoff Hoon who made an official complaint about my questioning as vice-chair of the European Parliament probe, as if there was nothing to answer."