Complaint over British role in extraordinary rendition

[seemslikeadream]

Complaint over British role in extraordinary rendition

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/03/humanrights.terrorism

complaint was made yesterday to the information commissioner about the government's behaviour over the use of the British island of Diego Garcia for the rendition of US prisoners.

Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chairs the all-party group on extraordinary rendition - the secret inter-state transfer of prisoners - said he had made the complaint to discover whether the UK was in breach of its obligations under the UN convention against torture.

The moves come after the Guardian yesterday highlighted human rights lawyers' claims that the United States is operating prison ships to house those arrested in its "war on terror".

"The foreign secretary has been forced to admit that two rendition planes refuelled at Diego Garcia, despite explicit US assurances to the UK government that no such flights had taken place," said Tyrie. "Clearly people will conclude that these assurances are worthless ... But in response to requests by me the government has twice refused to release the terms of these assurances. Their disclosure will allow for a legal assessment of whether or not the UK has breached its obligations under the convention against torture, both with respect to Diego Garcia and to rendition generally."

He added: "It is important to be confident that UK officials do not find themselves complicit in kidnap and torture. That is why I have complained to the information commissioner about the government's refusal to release this information."

David Miliband, the foreign secretary, has been asked to provide the names of prisoners rendered by the US. The human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, legal director of Reprieve, which acts for prisoners deprived of their human rights, has urged Miliband to name the detainees, who he believes have since been subjected to torture. Reprieve says the US has tried to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of detainees.

Earlier this year, Miliband apologised to MPs, admitting that, contrary to "earlier explicit assurances", two rendition flights had secretly landed at Diego Garcia, the British Indian Ocean territory where the US has a large airbase. He said the flights had refuelled there in 2002 and each had had a single detainee on board who did not leave the aircraft. However, he declined to identify the prisoners.

Stafford Smith has suggested that one "likely candidate" is Muhammad Saad Iqbal Madni, a dual Egyptian-Pakistani national who was seized in Jakarta, Indonesia, in January 2002. He insists he is innocent of any crime and was in Jakarta to visit his Indonesian stepmother and his brother after the death of his father. He spent 92 days in Egyptian custody and was then taken to Afghanistan for 11 months and eventually to Guantánamo Bay. He became depressed and, after more than six months, attempted suicide.

Another name suggested is that of Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, who was transferred from the USS Bataan in 2002, probably in the vicinity of Diego Garcia. He was taken to Egypt, where, according to Reprieve, he was tortured into "admitting" that al-Qaida was in league with Saddam Hussein in the development of weapons of mass destruction. He is understood to have been handed over to Libyan authorities. Three other possible prisoner/passengers are Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, who was taken into custody in September 2002 in Pakistan; Hambali, also known as Riduan Isamuddin; and Abu Zubaydah.


...

Barry McCaffrey, a retired four-star US general who is professor of international security studies at West Point military academy, has twice spoken publicly about the use of Diego Garcia to detain suspects. In May 2004, he said: "We're probably holding around 3,000 people, you know, Bagram airfield, Diego Garcia, Guantánamo, 16 camps throughout Iraq." He repeated the claim in December last year.

[DCKit]

1. May there be tens and hundreds of thousands more little cuts...

It's the only way to get the ball rolling.