UK HOME secretary Jacqui Smith is to be questioned over allegations that British security services colluded in the torture of terrorism suspects and operated under a “James Bond-style get-out clause”.
The allegations, first reported last year, relate to a number of suspects arrested in Pakistan at the request of British authorities between 2003 and 2007. The men say they were repeatedly tortured by agents of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) before being questioned by MI5.
Yesterday members of the Westminster parliament’s joint committee on human rights (JCHR) heard that British officials put pressure on the Pakistani authorities to get information and “knew very well” they were using torture.
Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch said: “Pakistani government officials and security officials in particular were very open about this. In many private conversations, they have told me they were asked to do this by the UK.”
Andrew Dismore, chair of the JCHR, said a combination of the UK’s Criminal Justice Act 1988 and Intelligence Services Act 1994 led him to conclude “the security services may be operating under a James Bond-style get-out clause”.
He added that the allegations were so serious that the committee would call the home secretary to give evidence.
The original reports were based on detailed accounts of several suspects who say they were tortured by members of the Pakistani security services before being questioned by the British.
One of the alleged victims, Rangzieb Ahmed, from Manchester, northern England, says that, in 2006, he was beaten, whipped, deprived of sleep and had three finger nails extracted by ISI agents before being interrogated by two MI5 officers. In December, he was convicted of being a member of al-Qaeda.
Before Ahmed’s trial began, the judge ruled that he did not believe the fingernails had been taken out before the meeting with MI5 and the jury were not told about the incident. Part of the judge’s ruling is being kept secret.
A second man, from Luton, alleges that he was whipped, suspended by his wrists and beaten. His interrogation was co-ordinated with the questioning of several associates at Paddington Green police station, west London, and the questioning of a further suspect in Canada.
Another man, accused of being an al-Qaeda terrorist, from the West Midlands claimed he was tortured after being detained in Pakistan during a British-led counterterrorism investigation. He says for several months the ISI kept him in a pitch-black cell not much bigger than a coffin, and that he was beaten, whipped and subjected to electric shocks. He alleges he interrogated by people speaking English. – (Guardian service)