Former Gitmo Guard Tells All

[luke]

Former Gitmo Guard Tells All

Army Private Brandon Neely served as a prison guard at Guantánamo in the first years the facility was in operation. With the Bush Administration, and thus the threat of retaliation against him, now gone, Neely decided to step forward and tell his story. "The stuff I did and the stuff I saw was just wrong," he told the Associated Press. Neely describes the arrival of detainees in full sensory-deprivation garb, he details their sexual abuse by medical personnel, torture by other medical personnel, brutal beatings out of frustration, fear, and retribution, the first hunger strike and its causes, torturous shackling, positional torture, interference with religious practices and beliefs, verbal abuse, restriction of recreation, the behavior of mentally ill detainees, an isolation regime that was put in place for child-detainees, and his conversations with prisoners David Hicks and Rhuhel Ahmed. It makes for fascinating reading.

Neely’s comprehensive account runs to roughly 15,000 words. It was compiled by law students at the University of California at Davis and can be accessed here. Three things struck me in reading through the account.

First, Neely and other guards had been trained to the U.S. military’s traditional application of the Geneva Convention rules. They were put under great pressure to get rough with the prisoners and to violate the standards they learned. This placed the prison guards under unjustifiable mental stress and anxiety, and, as any person familiar with the vast psychological literature in the area (think of the Stanford Prison Experiment, for instance) would have anticipated produced abuses. Neely discusses at some length the notion of IRF (initial reaction force), a technique devised to brutalize or physically beat a detainee under the pretense that he required being physically subdued. The IRF approach was devised to use a perceived legal loophole in the prohibition on torture. Neely’s testimony makes clear that IRF was understood by everyone, including the prison guards who applied it, as a subterfuge for beating and mistreating prisoners—and that it had nothing to do with the need to preserve discipline and order in the prison.

Second, there is a good deal of discussion of displays of contempt for Islam by the camp authorities, and also specific documentation of mistreatment of the Qu’ran. Remember that the Neocon-laden Pentagon Public Affairs office launched a war against Newsweek based on a very brief piece that appeared in the magazine’s Periscope section concerning the mistreatment of a Qu’ran by a prison guard. Not only was the Newsweek report accurate in its essence, it actually understated the gravity and scope of the problem. Moreover, it is clear that the Pentagon Public Affairs office was fully aware, even as it went on the attack against Newsweek, that its claims were false and the weekly’s reporting was accurate.

Third, the Nelly account shows that health professionals are right in the thick of the torture and abuse of the prisoners—suggesting a systematic collapse of professional ethics driven by the Pentagon itself. He describes body searches undertaken for no legitimate security purpose, simply to sexually invade and humiliate the prisoners. This was a standardized Bush Administration tactic–the importance of which became apparent to me when I participated in some Capitol Hill negotiations with White House representatives relating to legislation creating criminal law accountability for contractors. The Bush White House vehemently objected to provisions of the law dealing with rape by instrumentality. When House negotiators pressed to know why, they were met first with silence and then an embarrassed acknowledgement that a key part of the Bush program included invasion of the bodies of prisoners in a way that might be deemed rape by instrumentality under existing federal and state criminal statutes. While these techniques have long been known, the role of health care professionals in implementing them is shocking.

Neely’s account demonstrates once more how much the Bush team kept secret and how little we still know about their comprehensive program of official cruelty and torture.

full report here

[luke]

UK agents 'colluded with torture in Pakistan'
• Intelligence sources 'confirm abuse'
• Extent of Mohamed injuries revealed

A shocking new report alleges widespread complicity between British security agents and their Pakistani counterparts who have routinely engaged in the torture of suspects.

In the study, which will be published next month by the civil liberties group Human Rights Watch, at least 10 Britons are identified who have been allegedly tortured in Pakistan and subsequently questioned by UK intelligence officials. It warns that more British cases may surface and that the issue of Pakistani terrorism suspects interrogated by British agents is likely to "run much deeper".

The report will further embarrass the foreign secretary, David Miliband, who has repeatedly said the UK does not condone torture. He has been under fire for refusing to disclose US documents relating to the treatment of Guantánamo detainee and former British resident Binyam Mohamed. The documents are believed to contain evidence about the torture of Mohamed and British complicity in his maltreatment. Mohamed will return to Britain this week. Doctors who examined him in Guantánamo found evidence of prolonged physical and mental mistreatment.

Ali Dayan Hasan, who led the Pakistan-based inquiry, said sources within the country's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), the Intelligence Bureau and the military security services had provided "confirmation and information" relating to British collusion in the interrogation of terrorism suspects.

Hasan said the Human Rights Watch (HRW) evidence collated from Pakistan intelligence officials indicated a "systemic" modus operandi among British security services, involving a significant number of UK agents from MI5 rather than maverick elements. Different agents were deployed to interview different suspects, many of whom alleged that prior to interrogation by British officials they were tortured by Pakistani agents.

Among the 10 identified cases of British citizens and residents mentioned in the report is Rangzieb Ahmed, 33, from Rochdale, who claims he was tortured by Pakistani intelligence agents before being questioned by two MI5 officers. Ahmed was convicted of being a member of al-Qaida at Manchester crown court, yet the jury was not told that three of the fingernails of his left hand had been removed. The response from MI5 to the allegations that it had colluded in Ahmed's torture were heard in camera, however, after the press and the public were excluded from the proceedings. Ahmed's description of the cell in which he claims he was tortured closely matches that where Salahuddin Amin, 33, from Luton, says he was tortured by ISI officers between interviews with MI5 officers.

Zeeshan Siddiqui, 25, from London, who was detained in Pakistan in 2005, also claims he was interviewed by British intelligence agents during a period in which he was tortured.

Other cases include that of a London medical student who was detained in Karachi and tortured after the July 2005 attacks in London. Another case involving Britons allegedly tortured in Pakistan and questioned by UK agents involves a British Hizb ut-Tahrir supporter.

Rashid Rauf, from Birmingham, was detained in Pakistan and questioned over suspected terrorist activity in 2006. He was reportedly killed after a US drone attack in Pakistan's tribal regions, though his body has never been found.

Hasan said: "What the research suggests is that these are not incidents involving one particular rogue officer or two, but rather an array of individuals involved over a period of several years.

"The issue is not just British complicity in the torture of British citizens, it is the issue of British complicity in the torture period. We know of at least 10 cases, but the complicity probably runs much deeper because it involves a series of terrorism suspects who are Pakistani. This is the heart of the matter.

"They are not the same individuals [MI5 officers] all the time. I know that the people who have gone to see Siddiqui in Peshawar are not the same people who have seen Ahmed in Rawalpindi."

Last night the government faced calls to clarify precisely its relationship with Pakistan's intelligence agencies, which are known to routinely use torture.

A Foreign Office spokesman said that an investigation by the British security services had revealed "there is nothing to suggest they have engaged in torture in Pakistan". He added: "Our policy is not to participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture, or inhumane or degrading treatment, for any purpose."

But former shadow home secretary David Davis said the claims from Pakistan served to "reinforce" allegations that UK authorities, at the very least, ignored Pakistani torture techniques.

"The British agencies can no longer pretend that 'Hear no evil, see no evil' is applicable in the modern world," he added.

Last week HRW submitted evidence to parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights. The committee is to question Miliband and Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, over a legal loophole which appears to offer British intelligence officers immunity in the UK for any crimes committed overseas.

It has also emerged that New York-based HRW detailed its concerns in a letter to the UK government last October but has yet to receive a response.

The letter arrived at the same time that the Attorney General was tasked with deciding if Scotland Yard should begin a criminal investigation into British security agents' treatment of Binyam Mohamed. Crown prosecutors are currently weighing up the evidence.

Hasan said that evidence indicated a considerable number of UK officers were involved in interviewing terrorism suspects after they were allegedly tortured. He told the Observer: "We don't know who the individuals [British intelligence officers] were, but when you have different personnel coming in and behaving in a similar fashion it implies some level of systemic approach to the situation, rather than one eager beaver deciding it is absolutely fine for someone to be beaten or hung upside down."

He accused British intelligence officers of turning a blind eye as UK citizens endured torture at the hands of Pakistan's intelligence agencies.

"They [the British] have met the suspect ... and have conspicuously failed to notice that someone is in a state of high physical distress, showing signs of injury. If you are a secret service agent and fail to notice that their fingernails are missing, you ought to be fired."

Britain's former chief legal adviser, Lord Goldsmith, said that the Foreign Office would want to examine any British involvement in torture allegations very carefully and, if necessary, bring individuals "to book" to ensure such behaviour was "eradicated".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/22/torture-pakistan-human-rights

Revealed: full horror of Gitmo inmate's beatings

Former British resident Binyam Mohamed arrives back in Britain tomorrow after his release from Guantanamo Bay. British and US lawyers claim that sustained beatings - which have only recently stopped - have left him with severe psychological and physical problems. Defence correspondent Mark Townsend reports

Binyam Mohamed will return to Britain suffering from a huge range of injuries after being beaten by US guards right up to the point of his departure from Guantánamo Bay, according to the first detailed accounts of his treatment inside the camp.

Mohamed will arrive back tomorrow in the UK, where he was a British resident between 1984 and 2002. During medical examinations last week, doctors discovered injuries and ailments resulting from apparently brutal treatment in detention.

Mohamed was found to be suffering from bruising, organ damage, stomach complaints, malnutrition, sores to feet and hands, severe damage to ligaments as well as profound emotional and psychological problems which have been exacerbated by the refusal of Guantánamo's guards to give him counselling.

Mohamed's British lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, said his client had been beaten "dozens" of times inside the notorious US camp in Cuba with the most recent abuse occurring during recent weeks. He said: "He has a list of physical ailments that cover two sheets of A4 paper. What Binyam has been through should have been left behind in the middle ages."

Lieutenant colonel Yvonne Bradley, Mohamed's US military attorney, added: "He has been severely beaten. Sometimes I don't like to think about it because my country is behind all this."

The former attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, who campaigned for Guantánamo Bay to be closed, said any allegation of US abuse against a British resident inside the prison should be urgently raised by the foreign secretary, David Miliband, with the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.

"If there are credible accounts of mistreatment then they need to be pursued," said Goldsmith.

Claims that Mohamed was beaten during the period after President Obama announced Guantánamo's closure in January risk harming diplomatic relations between the administration and the British government. Prime minister Gordon Brown is believed to have raised Mohamed's case with the US president during their first talk following Obama's inauguration two months ago.

Stafford Smith, the director of legal charity Reprieve, said yesterday that Mohamed had been routinely beaten by Guantánamo's notorious emergency reaction force, a six-strong team of guards in riot gear who have been the subject of previous abuse allegations. The alleged beatings were routinely administered against Mohamed "for no reason" and some were "recent" according to Stafford Smith.

Upon his return to England after more than four years inside Guantánamo, Mohamed will be taken to a secure, secret location in order for him to be fully rehabilitated by a team of volunteer doctors and psychiatrists. Mohamed will be kept under a "voluntary security arrangement" which involves reporting to the authorities, but he will not be subject to an anti-terror control order. His lawyers reiterate that he has nothing to hide after US terror charges against him were dropped last year.

Mohamed will not be debriefed upon his arrival by the British authorities or face any interview from the British security agencies. At least one MI5 officer is currently waiting to hear whether he will face a criminal investigation over alleged complicity in the torture of Mohamed, who settled in Kensington, west London, after arriving from Ethiopia as a teenage asylum seeker.

Mohamed's eventual testimony may also shed light on MI5's alleged complicity in his interrogation and alleged torture. One likely step will involve suing the British government and its security services over potential allegations of complicity in his illegal detention, abduction, treatment and interrogation.

Lord Carlile of Berriew, the independent reviewer of the anti-terrorism laws, warned yesterday that, once settled, Mohamed's possible legal action against the US or British authorities could force them to disclose vital evidence relating to the torture allegations.

Following his arrest in Pakistan more than six years ago, Mohamed has claimed he was told by British government officials that everything would be done to help him.

Lt Col Bradley, who is staying in England until Thursday to welcome Mohamed, said the most crucial issue was stabilising his health. Mohamed's weight has fallen from 170lbs to about 125lbs. "He needs to get his weight back on and start eating," she said.

Mohamed's return to England coincides with signs that the government is preparing to accept more detainees from Guantánamo in the face of increasing US pressure to help shut the camp.

The Foreign Office appears to be softening its stance towards accepting more detainees from the prison after last month insisting there were "no plans" to accept more inmates. The position has now shifted to a statement explaining that "no formal decision has been made" on the UK accepting detainees from other countries.

A Foreign Office source added that all cases were now being reviewed on an individual basis by the home secretary Jacqui Smith. This comes amid intensifying pressure from the US authorities, with the Observer learning that direct requests for Britain to accept more detainees have now been lodged by the Obama administration. Sources at the US department of defence said talks were ongoing with countries, including the UK, to re-house inmates.

Dean Boyd, spokesman for the US department of justice, said: "We will undoubtedly need the assistance of our close friends and allies as we work towards closing Guantánamo."

Goldsmith said Britain should accept prisoners from the camp if it would help Obama to close it down.

British citizens and residents mentioned in the report is Rangzieb Ahmed, 33, from Rochdale, who claims he was tortured by Pakistani intelligence agents before being questioned by two MI5 officers. Ahmed was convicted of being a member of al-Qaida at Manchester crown court, yet the jury was not told that three of the fingernails of his left hand had been removed. The response from MI5 to the allegations that it had colluded in Ahmed's torture were heard in camera, however, after the press and the public were excluded from the proceedings. Ahmed's description of the cell in which he claims he was tortured closely matches that where Salahuddin Amin, 33, from Luton, says he was tortured by ISI officers between interviews with MI5 officers.

Zeeshan Siddiqui, 25, from London, who was detained in Pakistan in 2005, also claims he was interviewed by British intelligence agents during a period in which he was tortured.

Other cases include that of a London medical student who was detained in Karachi and tortured after the July 2005 attacks in London. Another case involving Britons allegedly tortured in Pakistan and questioned by UK agents involves a British Hizb ut-Tahrir supporter.

Rashid Rauf, from Birmingham, was detained in Pakistan and questioned over suspected terrorist activity in 2006. He was reportedly killed after a US drone attack in Pakistan's tribal regions, though his body has never been found.

Hasan said: "What the research suggests is that these are not incidents involving one particular rogue officer or two, but rather an array of individuals involved over a period of several years.

"The issue is not just British complicity in the torture of British citizens, it is the issue of British complicity in the torture period. We know of at least 10 cases, but the complicity probably runs much deeper because it involves a series of terrorism suspects who are Pakistani. This is the heart of the matter.

"They are not the same individuals [MI5 officers] all the time. I know that the people who have gone to see Siddiqui in Peshawar are not the same people who have seen Ahmed in Rawalpindi."

Last night the government faced calls to clarify precisely its relationship with Pakistan's intelligence agencies, which are known to routinely use torture.

A Foreign Office spokesman said that an investigation by the British security services had revealed "there is nothing to suggest they have engaged in torture in Pakistan". He added: "Our policy is not to participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture, or inhumane or degrading treatment, for any purpose."

But former shadow home secretary David Davis said the claims from Pakistan served to "reinforce" allegations that UK authorities, at the very least, ignored Pakistani torture techniques.

"The British agencies can no longer pretend that 'Hear no evil, see no evil' is applicable in the modern world," he added.

Last week HRW submitted evidence to parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights. The committee is to question Miliband and Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, over a legal loophole which appears to offer British intelligence officers immunity in the UK for any crimes committed overseas.

It has also emerged that New York-based HRW detailed its concerns in a letter to the UK government last October but has yet to receive a response.

The letter arrived at the same time that the Attorney General was tasked with deciding if Scotland Yard should begin a criminal investigation into British security agents' treatment of Binyam Mohamed. Crown prosecutors are currently weighing up the evidence.

Hasan said that evidence indicated a considerable number of UK officers were involved in interviewing terrorism suspects after they were allegedly tortured. He told the Observer: "We don't know who the individuals [British intelligence officers] were, but when you have different personnel coming in and behaving in a similar fashion it implies some level of systemic approach to the situation, rather than one eager beaver deciding it is absolutely fine for someone to be beaten or hung upside down."

He accused British intelligence officers of turning a blind eye as UK citizens endured torture at the hands of Pakistan's intelligence agencies.

"They [the British] have met the suspect ... and have conspicuously failed to notice that someone is in a state of high physical distress, showing signs of injury. If you are a secret service agent and fail to notice that their fingernails are missing, you ought to be fired."

Britain's former chief legal adviser, Lord Goldsmith, said that the Foreign Office would want to examine any British involvement in torture allegations very carefully and, if necessary, bring individuals "to book" to ensure such behaviour was "eradicated".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/22/binyam-mohamed-injuries

[faceless]

It doesn't surprise me at all to hear that British troops are involved - the irony is that the people who would do torture are just as ideologically twisted as the people they are attacking.

And then they get feted as heroes when they return? My hairy fucking arse.

[luke]

Lawyer says Guantanamo abuse worse since Obama

LONDON (Reuters) - Abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay has worsened sharply since President Barack Obama took office as prison guards "get their kicks in" before the camp is closed, according to a lawyer who represents detainees.

Abuses began to pick up in December after Obama was elected, human rights lawyer Ahmed Ghappour told Reuters. He cited beatings, the dislocation of limbs, spraying of pepper spray into closed cells, applying pepper spray to toilet paper and over-forcefeeding detainees who are on hunger strike.

The Pentagon said on Monday that it had received renewed reports of prisoner abuse during a recent review of conditions at Guantanamo, but had concluded that all prisoners were being kept in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

"According to my clients, there has been a ramping up in abuse since President Obama was inaugurated," said Ghappour, a British-American lawyer with Reprieve, a legal charity that represents 31 detainees at Guantanamo.

"If one was to use one's imagination, (one) could say that these traumatized, and for lack of a better word barbaric, guards were just basically trying to get their kicks in right now for fear that they won't be able to later," he said.

"Certainly in my experience there have been many, many more reported incidents of abuse since the inauguration," added Ghappour, who has visited Guantanamo six times since late September and based his comments on his own observations and conversations with both prisoners and guards.

He stressed the mistreatment did not appear to be directed from above, but was an initiative undertaken by frustrated U.S. army and navy jailers on the ground. It did not seem to be a reaction against the election of Obama, a Democrat who has pledged to close the prison camp within a year, but rather a realization that there was little time remaining before the last 241 detainees, all Muslim, are released.

"It's 'hey, let's have our fun while we can,'" said Ghappour, who helped secure the release this week of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident freed from Guantanamo Bay after more than four years in detention without trial or charge.

"I can't really imagine why you would get your kicks from abusing prisoners, but certainly, having spoken to certain guards who have been injured in Iraq, who indirectly or directly blame my clients for their injuries and the trauma they have suffered, it's not too difficult to put two and two together."

FORCE-FEEDING

Following a January 22 order from Obama, the U.S. Defense Department conducted a two-week review of conditions at Guantanamo ahead of the planned closure of the prison on Cuba.

Admiral Patrick Walsh, the review's author, acknowledged on Monday that reports of abuse had emerged but concluded all inmates were being treated in line with the Geneva Conventions.

"We heard allegations of abuse," he said, asked if detainees had reported torture. "And what we did at that point was to go back and investigate the allegation... What we found is that there were in some cases substantiated evidence where guards had misconduct, I think that would be the best way to put it."

Walsh said his review looked at 20 allegations of abuse, 14 of which were substantiated, but he did not go into details. Generally he said the abuse ranged from "gestures, comments, disrespect" to "preemptive use of pepper spray."

Ghappour said he had spoken to army guards who, unsolicited, had described the pleasure they took in abusing prisoners, whether interrupting prayer or physical mistreatment. He said they appeared unconcerned about potential repercussions.

He also saw evidence of guards pulling identity numbers off their uniforms or switching them once they were on duty in order to make it more difficult for them to be identified.

Ghappour said he had filed two complaints of serious detainee abuse since December 22 but received no response from U.S. authorities. In one case his client had his knee, shoulder and thumb dislocated by a group of guards, Ghappour said.

In one of the six main camps at Guantanamo, the lawyer said all the detainees he knew were on hunger strike and subject to force-feeding, including with laxatives that induced chronic diarrhea while they were strapped in their feeding chairs.

"Several of my clients have had toilet paper pepper-sprayed while they have had hemorrhoids," Ghappour said.

Another area of concern was evidence that detainees were being abused on the way to meetings with their lawyers -- sometimes so badly that they no longer wanted to meet with counsel for fear of the beatings they would receive, he said.

"Some detainees are convinced they are going to be locked up there forever, despite the promises to close the camp," he said.

[luke]

We did hand over terror suspects for rendition, Hutton admits
Defence Secretary sorry for misleading statements made by ministers

The British Government admitted for the first time yesterday that it had been involved in "extraordinary rendition". The Defence Secretary John Hutton disclosed that terror suspects handed over to the US in Iraq were flown out of the country for interrogation.

Contradicting previous insistences by the Government that it had no played no part in the controversial practice, John Hutton revealed that details of the cases were known by officials and detailed in documents sent to two cabinet members at the time – Home Secretary Charles Clarke and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

The prisoners, two men of Pakistani origin who were members of the Lashkar-e-Toiba group, which is said to be affiliated to al-Qa'ida, were captured by SAS troops serving near Baghdad in February 2004. They were handed over to US custody and flown to Afghanistan within the next few months. Among other inmates who passed through the prison was Binyam Mohammed, the UK citizen recently freed from Guantanamo Bay.

Mr Hutton apologised to the Commons "unreservedly" for misleading statements made by the Government in the past, adding "in retrospect, it is clear to me that the transfer to Afghanistan of these two individuals should have been questioned at the time".

Yesterday, Mr Clarke said he had nothing to add. A spokesman for Mr Straw said "passing references" were made to the cases in documents but he "was not alerted to the specific cases at the time".

There were immediate calls for an inquiry. The former shadow Home Secretary David Davis said the case was the "latest in a series of issues where the Government has been less than straightforward with regard to allegations of torture".

A fellow Tory MP, Crispin Blunt, asked why the transfer had not been more fully investigated in 2004, adding: "It is at the very least unfortunate that both officials and ministers overlooked the significance of these cases, not least since the issue of rendition was already highly controversial ... The country is owed an account of what happened – nothing does more to undermine our fight against terrorism and violence [than] if we depart from the rule of law and the values we seek to defend."

Last night, Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Ludford – who led an EU-wide inquiry into rendition in 2007 – said the admission was "another breach in the wall of denials and cover-ups". She said there was further evidence of 170 stopovers at UK airports by CIA-operated aircraft flying to or from countries where prisoners could be tortured.

The Defence Secretary said the two men continue to be held in Afghanistan as "unlawful enemy combatants" and their status is reviewed on a regular basis. There was no "substantial evidence" he continued, that they had been mistreated or subjected to abuse.

However, a report released by Human Rights Watch in 2004 accused American forces in Afghanistan of inflicting "illegal and abusive treatment" on inmates. Members of the US Congress also alleged mistreatment, with Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy saying some inmates had died. The International Committee of the Red Cross issued a formal complaint to the US in 2007.

Mr Hutton told MPs there had been a number of other errors in previous statements to the Commons, including the number of prisoners held by the UK in Iraq, where ministers "overstated by approximately 1,000 the numbers of detainees held by UK forces".

from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/we-did-hand-over-terror-suspects-for-rendition-hutton-admits-1633397.html

[luke]

Guilty: Britain admits collusion, new torture claims emerge
Evidence from the last British resident in Guantanamo reveals the full story of how terror suspects were illegally maltreated. Robert Verkaik reports

Britain faces fresh accusations that it colluded in the rendering and alleged torture of a second UK resident now being held at Guantanamo Bay. The new claims bring further pressure on ministers to come clean about the scale of the Government's complicity in the rendition and torture of dozens of terror suspects captured by the Americans after 9/11.

His case comes after that of Binyam Mohamed, 30, released from the US naval base in Cuba last week, and whose claims of UK involvement in his torture are being investigated by the Attorney General. Now allegations made by Shaker Aamer, the final British resident held at Guantanamo Bay, raise concerns that both MI5 and MI6 were widely involved in the US rendition and torture programme operated in Afghanistan and Pakistan after 9/11.

Mr Aamer, 42, says he was rendered from the Pakistan border to Afghanistan where he claims he was tortured. He was passed by Pakistani groups to the Northern Alliance who sold him to the Americans. The CIA arranged for his detention in Afghanistan and final transfer to Guantanamo Bay.

He adds that two MI6 or MI5 officers, a man and a woman, interrogated him after he had been subjected to beatings and sleep deprivation by the Americans while being held at a prison in Kandahar in January 2002. He has told his UK lawyers that the British woman officer called herself "Sally".

A few weeks later he says an MI5 officer was present while he was being tortured by CIA agents in an interrogation cell at Bagram air base in Afghanistan in January or February 2002. This time he claims a man called "John", who introduced himself as being from British intelligence, was in the room when his head was repeatedly "bounced" against a wall and he was told that he was going to die.

Mr Aamer's statement will be used in a High Court challenge against the British government to force ministers to release information about his detention and interrogation in 2002.

The new charges of British complicity in rendition and torture are the latest to be made against the British government which has always denied using torture or helping others use it. But a series of embarrassing revelations has shown the public may not have been told the whole truth. After blanket denials that the British overseas territory of Diego Garcia was used by the Americans for "torture flights", the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, was forced to admit last year that the UK Government had been misled by the US administration. Mr Miliband said the British outpost on the Indian Ocean island had twice been used by the US as a refuelling stop for the secret transfer of two terrorism suspects in 2002 to Morocco and Guantanamo Bay.

Then, on Thursday, it was the turn of the Defence Secretary, John Hutton, to make an embarrassing admission to Parliament. He told MPs that Britain had helped in the rendition of two Iraqis captured by British forces and sent to Afghanistan for interrogation by US agents as recently as 2004.

Pressure is now growing on the Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, to say what he was told about the US rendition programme when he was Foreign Secretary between 2001 and 2006.

Zachary Katznelson of the human rights charity Reprieve, representing Mr Aamer, said: "We must know whether MI5 or MI6 has information about Mr Aamer's detention and torture so that we can show that any evidence against him obtained under such conditions cannot be relied on by the US in any prosecution."

Mr Katznelson alleges Mr Aamer had been tortured by American agents for several days before he was interrogated by British intelligence officers. He said: "Mr Aamer has told us that on one occasion he was beaten and his head was bounced against the wall. They were screaming at him 'you are going to die'. He says that during this abuse a member of the British security services was present in the room who witnessed what was happening."

From Bagram, Mr Aamer was flown to Guantanamo Bay, where he is on hunger strike in protest at his alleged mistreatment and continued separation from his family. He also claims to have been beaten and tortured during his detention in Cuba.

Reprieve said the full story of Britain's involvement in US rendition and torture had not been told and that ministers' recent admissions were only the tip of the iceberg.

"This Government has misled us again and again," said Reprieve executive director Clare Algar. "Surely we must immediately have the public inquiry into the Government's conduct of the 'War on Terror' demanded by so many," she said.

Andrew Tyrie MP, the chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition, says the latest revelations require a full inquiry into Britain's role.

Mr Katznelson said Mr Aamer's evidence showed British collusion in rendition and torture was "systemic".

Binyam Mohamed also claims that British agents questioned him before he was sent to Morocco where he says he was brutally tortured before being taken to Cuba. He also said one of the British officers who interrogated him introduced himself as "John".

Mr Mohamed was arrested by Pakistani immigration officials at Karachi airport in April 2002 when intending to return to the UK. He alleges that he was tortured in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan between 2002 and 2004, including being beaten, scalded and having his penis slashed with a scalpel.

The MI5 agent who interviewed Mr Mohamed in Pakistan in early 2002 told the High Court last year that the US and UK both wanted information from him because they regarded him as a terror threat. The question was how it should best be obtained.

A telegram sent by MI5 requesting US permission to see Mr Mohamed made the case that the security service's "knowledge of the UK scene may provide contextual background useful during any continuing interview process ... This will place the detainee under more direct pressure."

In his note of the meeting with the British resident, the MI5 officer recalled: "I told Mohamed he had an opportunity to help us and help himself. The US authorities will be deciding what to do with him and this will depend to a very large degree on his degree of co-operation." Could witness B be the same MI5 agent who Shaker Aamer said had called himself "John"? Or was it coincidence that both British residents came up with same name for their interrogator?

The truth may not be known until Britain releases secret evidence about the Mohamed case. In a ruling last month, the High Court recommended that these documents be made public, but the judges stopped short of making it an order. Lawyers for Mr Miliband had warned that intelligence relations with the US would be seriously harmed were the documents to see the light of day. Lawyers believe these documents may also help to show whether "John", or someone else from MI5 or MI6, also interviewed Mr Aamer.

Mr Aamer, his wife and their three children left London in 2001 to go to Afghanistan to work with a children's charity. But Mr Aamer, a Saudi Arabian national who came to the UK in 1996, was captured on the Pakistan border in December 2001. Mr Aamer was transferred to Kandahar and Bagram air base and then flown on to Guantanamo Bay. For four years he has been held in solitary confinement because the Guantanamo camp guards believe he wields too much influence over other detainees. He has never seen his youngest son, who was born after his capture.

Mr Aamer's lawyers have filed a 16-page claim arguing for his removal from isolation in Guantanamo Bay prison. The British government has recently begun pressing the US administration for Mr Aamer's release.

It is understood that a party of Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials who visited Mr Mohamed in Cuba shortly before he was cleared for release, also had limited contact with Mr Aamer, who has lost half his body weight after a series of hunger strikes. An FCO spokesman said the Americans had told the British Government that they still had security concerns about Mr Aamer and would not release him.

A spokesman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that they took Mr Aamer's allegations very seriously and had launched an "urgent review" of the case. He said that Britain did not carry out or collude in torture.

How the Government changed its story from denial to regret

No one told us

20 November, 2005

"These are privately chartered aircraft and they don't need to tell us who is on board."

Department of Transport

We don't keep track of such things

22 November, 2005

"Where passengers do not leave the airfield, the MoD ... does not record details of passengers."

Adam Ingram, then Defence minister

No one asked us

30 November, 2005

The Government is "not aware of the use of their territory or airspace for the purposes of extraordinary rendition, nor have we received any requests, [or] granted any permission for the use of UK territory or airspace for such purposes".

Foreign Office

It never happened

5 December, 2005

"We have no evidence to corroborate media allegations about use of UK territory in rendition operations."

Foreign Office

We have no record

13 December, 2005

"Careful research has been unable to identify any occasion ... when we have received a request for permission by the United States for a rendition through the United Kingdom territory or airspace .... Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories ... there is simply no truth in claims that the UK has been involved in rendition."

Jack Straw, then Foreign Secretary

There's no evidence

22 December, 2005

"I have absolutely no evidence to suggest that anything illegal has been happening here at all.

"I am not going to start ordering inquiries into this, that or the next thing when I have got no evidence to show whether this is right or not."

Tony Blair, then Prime Minister

We've done nothing illegal

20 January, 2006

"Anything we do in relation to rendition is in compliance with our international obligations. We fulfil our legal obligations."

Tony Blair's spokesman

They'd have to ask us first

16 February, 2006

"We have made clear to [the US] we expect them to seek permission to render detainees via British airspace."

Ian Pearson, then Foreign Office minister

We've never given permission

7 October, 2006

"Mr Hoon ... made clear that the British Government has not approved and will not approve a policy of supporting the transfer of individuals through the UK to places where there are substantial grounds to suspect that they face the risk of torture."

Foreign Office

OK, they did it twice. But that's all

25 February, 2008

"The two flights from the US already identified are the only ones we are aware of."

Foreign Office

Yes, we were involved. And we shouldn't have been

27 February, 2009

"In retrospect, it is clear to me that the transfer to Afghanistan of these two individuals should have been questioned at the time."

John Hutton, Defence Secretary

from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/guilty-britain-admits-collusion-new-torture-claims-emerge-1634735.html

UN attacks Britain over torture claims
Investigator raises 'very clear allegations' that MI5 broke international law

Britain may have broken international law on torture, ministers have been warned by the United Nations. Professor Manfred Nowak, the UN's special rapporteur on torture, has alerted ministers to a range of concerns, including claims that MI5 officers were complicit in the maltreatment of suspects.

The Austrian law professor warned that Britain has breached the UN convention on torture, and he revealed that he was organising a fact-finding mission to Pakistan, whose security services allegedly tortured terror suspects before the captives were questioned by British intelligence.

It is the first time the UN's senior torture investigator has directly criticised a British government. Human rights groups said it was highly significant. Clare Algar, executive director of legal charity Reprieve, said: "This is a further significant embarrassment for the British government and reinforces the fact that we really need an independent review into what has been going on."

Nowak appeared to criticise the foreign secretary, David Miliband, for blocking the release of US files allegedly confirming MI5 involvement in the torture of British resident Binyam Mohamed. Miliband said releasing the documents could do "real and significant damage" to British national security.

Nowak, who reports to the UN's human rights council and the general assembly, said: "I am very concerned about the fact that allegations of torture actually cannot be really investigated because of the state secrecy privilege.

"We must get away from the use of the state secrecy privilege as a way of quashing court cases and litigation from victims of torture being heard in public."

After claims by Pakistani intelligence agents that they routinely tortured terror suspects with the knowledge of MI5 and MI6, Nowak revealed that Pakistan is denying his request for a fact-finding mission.

However, the disclosure that the UN has raised the issue of torture repeatedly with the UK will intensify pressure on ministers to answer the allegations. Even so, both Miliband and the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, have refused to testify to a parliamentary committee on allegations of British collusion.

"The policies of the United Kingdom, we feel, have touched my mandate, such as the issue of diplomatic assurances. I have been in regular contact with the British government," added Nowak, who last week met US officials in Washington on issues such as the closure of Guantanamo Bay and claims of torture by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The whole question of co-operation between the British and the US government in the fight against terror is an area of concern - the co-operating on these rendition flights and of course the interrogations," said Nowak.

He said he raised concerns with governments only when allegations appeared to be substantive and that he had raised issues through UK diplomatic channels to ensure "full accordance with the prohibition of torture".

"If I send a communication to a government it's usually done on the basis that I have received very clear allegations by a non-governmental or other source," he said. He said that if allegations of MI5 officers' complicity in torture were substantiated, it would constitute a breach of the UN convention on torture. "A country should also not be complicit in torture. If you clearly participate in interrogation or are using information that was extracted by torture, you might also be complicit," said Nowak.

"Interrogating people in prisons where there is evidence that they have been tortured, even if you do not torture them yourself ... it's a slippery slope," added Nowak.

The Foreign Office said it had examined all claims of mistreatment involving British officials. It added that it did not object to the release of the Mohamed documents if the US agreed.

from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/01/united-nations-britain-torture-mi5

[luke]

How Hard for the Truth to be Heard

Yesterday Harriet Harman was lying through her teeth on the Andrew Marr show, claiming that the Government had never had any idea any of its intelligence was coming through torture. Meanwhile, the Government has refused to testify on this subject before the Parliamentary Joint Commission on Human Rights, where such lies may have consequences. If Harman is telling the truth, what do Ministers have to hide from the Parliamentary Commission?

Of course, she is not telling the truth. I today sent this memorandum to the Joint Commission on Human Rights, offering to give evidence before them - if Ministers won't tell them what is happening, perhaps I can:

I wish to offer myself as a witness before the Joint Commission on Human Rights on the subject of the UK government's policy on intelligence cooperation with torture abroad.

I appeared as a witness in person before both the European Parliament and European Council's enquiries into extraordinary rendition. My evidence was described by the European Council's Rapporteur, Senator Dick Marty, as "Compelling and valuable".

The key points I wish to make are these:

- I was British Ambassador in Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004.
- I learned and confirmed that I was regularly seeing intelligence from detainees in the Uzbek torture chambers, sent me by the CIA via MI6.
- British Ministers and officials were seeing the same torture material.
- In October/November 2002 and January/Februray 2003 I sent two Top Secret telegrams to London specifically on the subject of our receipt of intelligence gained under torture. I argued this was illegal, immoral and impractical. The telegrams were speciifically marked for the Secretary of State.
- I was formally summoned back to the FCO for a meeting held on 7 or 8 March 2003 specifically and solely on the subject of intelligence gained under torture. Present were Linda Duffield, Director Wider Europe, FCO, Sir Michael Wood, Chief Legal Adviser, FCO, and Matthew Kydd, Head of Permanent Under-Secretary's Department, FCO.
- This meeting was minuted. I have seen the record, which is classified Top Secret and was sent to Jack Straw. On the top copy are extensive hand-written marginalia giving Jack Straw's views.
- I was told at this meeting that it is not illegal for us to obtain intelligence gained by torture, provided that we did not do the torture ourselves. I was told that it had been decided that as a matter of War on Terror policy we should now obtain intelligence from torture, following discussion between Jack Straw and Richard Dearlove. I was told that we could not exclude receipt of specific material from the CIA without driving a coach and horses through the universality principle of the UK/US intelligence sharing agreement, which would be detrimental to UK interests.
- Sir Michael Wood's legal advice that it was not illegal to receive intelligence got by torture was sent on to me in Tashkent (copy attached).
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/documents/Wood.pdf
- On 22 July 2004 I sent one further telegram on intelligence got by torture, with a lower classification, following FCO communications on the subject. Copy attached.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/documents/Telegram.pdf
It was my final communication before being dismissed as Ambassador.

In conclusion, I can testify that beyond any doubt the British government has for at least six years a considered but secret policy of cooperation with torture abroad. This policy legally cleared by government legal advisers and approved by Jack Straw as Secretary of State.

Craig Murray
2 March 2009

So now I wait to see what response I get. The Foreign Affairs Committee refused to call me to give evidence, and I rather fear that the Joint Commission on Human Rights may continue the British parliamentary tradition of ostracising whistleblowers.

from http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/03/how_hard_for_th.html

[Brown Sauce]

I wish there were a few more Craig Murrays about ...

[faceless]

I like his style, but I wonder how he got into that job as ambassador in the first place. Someone somewhere failed miserably to ensure that he was 'a good company man'...

[Brown Sauce]

that thought passed through me too.

"The thing that I did differently from other diplomats was that I cared.
Diplomats rather pride themselves on not caring. The culture of the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office has been perceptively described by
Carne Ross as “A cult of Machiavellianism”. Carne and I quit in the Bush/
Blair years because we both cared passionately about those values which
are meant to be fundamental to British policy, whichever party happens
to be in power. I care for human rights, democracy and international development.
I care for freedom. I care passionately for Africa."

from the intro to The Catholic Orangemen of Togo and Other Conflicts I Have Known

http://www.couchtripper.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?p=77874#77874

[luke]

Parliamentary Joint Human Rights Commission Struck By Cowardice

I have received this reply from the Parliamentary Joint Human Rights Commission to my request to give evidence to them:

Dear Mr Murray

The Committee considered your request and decided it wanted to spend a little more time considering the information you sent before reaching a decision, so they will consider the matter again next Tuesday.

best wishes
Mark Egan

How typical. The Commission has been huffing and puffing and pretending to make a fuss about finding the truth behind the government's attitude to intelligence from torture, with particular relation to the Binyam Mohammed case. This is part of the cosy Westminster game. But when someone comes along who can actually tell the truth, with documentary backing to prove it, they don't really want to know - in fact their first instinct is to bury the truth.

The politicians will be seeking advice now from their political masters, and the government spin machine will yet again go into overdrive. The wires from Whitehall to Westminster and the whips offices are already whispering yet again that Craig Murray is mad, alcoholic, corrupt and a pervert. Not the sort of chap you should take evidence from.

The government has had all those things published about me since I started fighting their use of torture. All of those things are lies.

But even if they were all true, I can nonetheless prove from documentary evidence and first hand testimony that the government systematically and as a matter of policy obtains evidence from torture abroad.

Why will parliament not hear me?

from http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/03/parliamentary_j.html

[luke]

from craig murray;

Justice Secretary Jack Straw to be Accused on Torture in Parliamentary Inquiry

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has agreed to hear my evidence on torture on Tuesday 28 April at 1.45pm. Many thanks to everyone who helped lobby for this.

I am delighted, as I have been trying for over four years to lay the truth about British torture policy before Parliament. I will testify that as British Ambassador I was told there is a very definite policy to accept intelligence from torture abroad, and that the policy was instituted and approved by Jack Straw when Foreign Secretary. I will tell them that as Ambassador I protested formally three times in writing to Jack Straw, and that the Foreign Office told me in reply to my protests that this was perfectly legal.

I will prove my evidence with documentation.

Here is the written evidence I will speak to
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/03/trying_again_my.html

There is now a wealth of evidence from individual cases to support my testimony that such an underlying secret policy exists.

It is likely that I will face hostile questioning from government supporters and from "War on Terror" hawks. In the past the government has accused me of corruption, sexual blackmail, and alcoholism (all completely untrue) and hinted that I am insane, in an effort to deflect attention from the cold facts of my testimony. The hearing will be open to the public, so if anyone can make it along, some friendly faces in the gallery would be extremely welcome.

I will also see if I can discover if anything usefully can be done by way of lobbying to ensure that the Parliament channel films it for broadcast.

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/

go on craig!

[faceless]

Excellent news - I doubt it will be broadcast, but they do play the committee sessions later on in the day for certain issues. I suppose it depends whether the parliament channel producers think it's worth noting that an ex Ambassador is making such claims...

[luke]

i doubt it'll be broadcast on tv, they always seem to pick the most banal of whats going on to broadcast

it'll be broadcast on the web though, we'll have to try get it recorded and put on youtube

[luke]

from craig murray;

FCO Finally Admits To Receiving Intelligence From Torture

This is the most important blog post I have ever made. I would be grateful if you could do everything in your power to disseminate a link to anyone you know who has the remotest interest in human rights - or should have. This blog will be silent for a few days now.

Tucked away at Page 15 of its annual Human Rights report, the FCO has finally made a public admission of its use of intelligence from torture. Despite the Orwellian doublespeak about "unreserved condemnation of torture", this is the clearest statement the government has ever made that it, as a policy, employs intelligence from torture.

"One example is the question of the use of intelligence provided to the UK by other countries. The provenance of such intelligence is often unclear – partners rarely share details of their sources. All intelligence received, whatever its source, is carefully evaluated, particularly where it is clear that it has been obtained from individuals in detention. The use of intelligence possibly derived through torture presents a very real dilemma, given our unreserved condemnation of torture and our efforts to eradicate it. Where there is intelligence that bears on threats to life, we cannot reject it out of hand. What is quite clear, however, is that information obtained as a result of torture would not be admissible as evidence in any criminal or civil proceedings in the UK. It does not matter whether the evidence was obtained here or abroad."

http://www.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/pdf/pdf15/human-rights-2008

Let us take this apart.

Let me start by noting that it confirms precisely the response I was given by the FCO when I tried to stop this back in 2003. http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/documents/Wood.pdf

It is worth noting two things. First it follows not just the precise legal distinctions made by Sir Michael Wood between intelligence and evidence, but it also very carefully mirrors the heading of his letter by referring to "Intelligence possibly obtained under torture" - even where there really was no actual doubt.

Secondly, it deploys the argument that you cannot be sure if the intelligence was obtained by torture or not, because the intelligence report does not give you the source. As I explain in my evidence statement to the Joint Commission on Human Rights, that is a deliberate double blind. The name of the source is always omitted from the intelligence report, on purpose so you cannot prove they were tortured to give that intelligence.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/03/trying_again_my.html

I might pause here to say that this stunning new admission by the FCO proves I was telling the truth all along. Given that Jack Straw in particular and the FCO in general have been calling me mad and a liar for the last five years, I hope you might forgive me for asking you to dwell on that for a moment.

Now let me return to analyse what the FCO statement means. It is a piece of mind-blowing hypocrisy. You cannot, in the same paragraph, argue our unreserved condemnation of torture, and that it save lives so we use intelligence from it. I would add that it is also an outright lie. Not a single one of the many pieces of torture intelligence I saw in Uzbekistan had the slightest bearing on saving lives in the UK. In fact the "intelligence" was, on the whole and in detail, highly misleading. Yet the FCO made a very definite policy decision to continue to receive it - because it came from the CIA.

The FCO has in fact under New Labour never rejected any intelligence on the grounds that it came from torture.

The fact that the government accepts that it cannot use such intelligence as evidence in court, is not of great comfort when instead it is used to have people kidnapped and sent on extraordinary rendition, or severely beaten and detained without charge, or deported to home countries where they will be murdered.

The ticking bomb scenario is a Hollywood myth. 99 per cent of the tens of thousands of cases of torture in the War on Terror have been "Fishing expedition". Torture does not work. The tortured individual will not tell you the truth, but will tell whatever he or she thinks will satisfy the torturer and stop the pain. We know this from history. People confessed under torture that their cat was the Devil and they flew on broomsticks. In my time in Uzbekistan children were tortured in front of their parents and dissidents were boiled alive.

Yet by accepting torture material for "Careful evaluation" we create a market for it. We increase the amount of torture in the World by putting a value on its result. And we are breaking international law by complicity in torture, which is plainly against Article 4 of the UN Convention Against Torture.

The government has set up its usual planned exoneration by allowing their cronies at Scotland Yard to conduct a highly circumscribed investigation into the MI5 agents involved in the torture of Binyan Mohammed.

In fact the guilt lies plainly with those who set this policy of compliance with evil. The most guilty is Jack Straw.