Council of Europe Report: Reprieve Calls for Immediate Investigation of Secret Prison on British Island of Diego Garcia
08.06.07
As today’s Council of Europe report confirms British island Diego Garcia’s critical role in the CIA’s extraordinary renditions programme, Reprieve calls on the British Government to investigate immediately the use of the island by the CIA and to reveal publicly all information found.
Reprieve has been investigating British and European complicity in the CIA’s extraordinary renditions programme for over a year.
Clive Stafford Smith, Legal Director of Reprieve, said: “Reprieve has been in possession of flight logs showing CIA planes flying in and out of the island for almost a year now. A US General has twice said Diego Garcia is being used for secret prisons. Now, the Council of Europe confirms it. And what has the British Government done? Behaved like an ostrich with its head in the sand. Their defence is the US stated nothing was going on, so there was no need to investigate. Nonsense. The UK Government has deliberately ignored clear proof that British territory has been used to support this illegal, repugnant system of kidnap and torture.”
Stafford Smith continued: “Surely today’s report creates an imperative for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to act. It is vital that we find out just how many prisoners have passed through British territory, how long were they kept there, and what happened to them. Were they tortured? Where are they today? Somebody needs to be held publicly accountable for this complete violation of human rights and the law.”
Reprieve notes that this is far from the first time that Diego Garcia has been implicated in the CIA’s renditions programme. On 5 December 2006, United States General Barry McCaffrey stated about suspected terrorists: “They’re behind bars, they’re dead, they’re apprehended. We’ve got them on Diego Garcia, in Bagram Airfield, in Guantanamo.” In May 2004, General McCaffrey said: “We‘re probably holding around 3,000 people, you know, Bagram Air Field, Diego Garcia, Guantanamo, 16 camps throughout Iraq.”
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