UK torture complicity

Since 2002, despite repeated assertions from the British government about its opposition to such abuse, Reprieve has encountered and uncovered evidence of UK involvement in activities amounting to complicity in torture.

Working for men who were abused by military and intelligence agencies allied to the UK, Reprieve focuses on providing access to justice for prisoners and works to make sure that UK officials respect the rule of law.

Speaking to us while they were still held in Guantánamo Bay, Reprieve’s clients, including Binyam Mohamed, Moazzam Begg, and Bisher Al-Rawi, described how the British had been involved in their abuse. Their stories revealed that British Secret Service officials questioned prisoners in facilities where torture was endemic, asked that prisoners held in incommunicado detention be questioned, routinely received information from detainees that they must have known were being tortured, and stood by as British residents were dragged into the illicit US network of secret prisons. Even in Guantánamo Bay, where Reprieve clients were held outside the rule of law and subjected to vicious abuses, the British Secret Services interrogated UK nationals and other English speakers.

As the evidence emerged from Guantánamo, Reprieve began to investigate and litigate against United Kingdom involvement in the US-led extraordinary rendition system, and against UK engagement with intelligence garnered under torture.

In Binyam Mohamed’s case, Reprieve argued that the British government should turn over evidence that could help prove his innocence and the extent of his torture.

On behalf of Saad Iqbal Madni, we demanded that the government provide all information in their possession regarding the use of British Overseas Territory, Diego Garcia, as a landing site for extraordinary renditions. Reprieve’s investigations showed that Madni was rendered to torture in Egypt and Afghanistan, via Diego Garcia; when he landed on the British island on a CIA jet, he was taped into a coffin.

Reprieve also took the UK government to court on behalf of Yunus Rahmatullah, a man who UK troops had fed into the abusive US rendition system. After years of government denials that the UK had been involved in any rendition operations, in February 2009 the then Secretary of State for Defence announced to Parliament that UK forces had captured two men in Iraq in February 2004, and handed them to US forces. In subsequent statements to Parliament, the government revealed that in March 2004, British officials had become aware of the US intention to transfer the men from Iraq to Afghanistan. The government refused to identify the prisoners, but Reprieve tracked them down, and continues to fight to reunite them with the rule of law.

In 2009, against the background of mounting concern about the United Kingdom’s complicity in torture – identified through Reprieve’s litigation, the investigation of other respected human rights groups, and expressed in Parliament by the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Foreign Affairs Committee – Reprieve went to court, seeking a judicial review of the Government’s failure to ensure that UK intelligence personnel refrain from acts and omissions amounting to complicity in torture. In particular, Reprieve sought a declaration that the government’s guidance to UK intelligence personnel, understood to have been promulgated in 2002 and updated periodically from 2004 onwards, concerning the role and responsibilities of such personnel when interviewing or witnessing the interviews of detainees and when liaising with overseas security and intelligence services in relation to detainees who may be subject to mistreatment, was unlawful. Reprieve’s action forced the government’s hand, and we stayed the case when the government agreed to publish guidance provided to intelligence personnel. Unfortunately, the guidance issued remains highly questionable; recently, the Equality and Human Rights Commission challenged its legality in court.

An inquiry was announced on 6 July 2010 by David Cameron to look into allegations of United Kingdom complicity in human rights abuses of detainees held by other countries in counter-terrorism operations overseas. Despite pushing for this for over a year, Reprieve, along with a coalition of 10 leading human rights organisations (Amnesty, Liberty and Human Rights Watch to name a few) has withdrawn on the grounds that the process is not transparent or credible enough to establish the truth. Key shortcomings include the reliance on the Government to determine what material is made public and the failure to ensure meaningful participation by detainees.

Our investigators continue to collect evidence on cases which should be considered and Reprieve calls on the Government to ensure a robust and transparent process.

For a timeline of events leading up to the Green Paper on secret evidence click here.