Legal action charity Reprieve is today [1030 Thursday 23 June] taking government ministers William Hague and Liam Fox to court over their role in the unlawful detention of a man rendered to an Afghan prison and held without charge for seven years.
Reprieve is calling for habeas corpus relief – in short, the right to be charged or released – for Yunus Rahmatullah, a Pakistani national captured by British forces in Iraq and subsequently ‘rendered’ to Afghanistan's notorious Bagram Theater Internment Facility. The Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs and Defence are opposing the claim, effectively condemning the prisoner to indefinite detention without charge or trial.
Mr Rahmatullah was one of two men picked up by UK forces in 2004, handed over to the Americans and illegally transferred to Bagram, where he has remained ever since. The UK was fully aware of the rendition, otherwise known as kidnap, but it was not until 2009 that then-Defence Secretary John Hutton finally admitted to the House of Commons that it had even happened.
The British Government remains in effective control of Mr Rahmatullah, as the original detaining power. Yet, despite repeated requests, various ministers have refused to take even the most basic steps to investigate his illegal imprisonment. Indeed, the Ministry of Defence actively blocked Reprieve’s attempts to identify and assist the prisoner, citing ‘Data Protection’ issues.
Reprieve is now seeking habeas corpus – one of Britain’s oldest legal freedoms. Mr Rahmatullah should enjoy the most basic of rights: to be charged, or to be released.
Reprieve’s Legal Director Cori Crider said:
“This Government claims to be different: William Hague has described extraordinary rendition as a ‘line in the sand’. Yet the Foreign Secretary is now fighting tooth and nail in the courts against providing the most basic legal rights to a man seized by Britain, illegally rendered and held without charge or trial for seven years. This looks very much like the ‘foreign policy without a conscience’ he once claimed to oppose.”
Reprieve’s Director Clive Stafford Smith said:
“In their repeated attempts to evade responsibility for an illegal rendition, the British Government is condemning two prisoners to endless detention without trial and washing its hands of their seven-year ordeal. It is astonishing that our government is recycling the same cynical arguments used in the early days of Guantanamo Bay, and that, yet again, the courts have to be asked to step in to uphold basic common sense and decency.”
ENDS
Notes to editors
1. For further information please contact Donald Campbell in Reprieve's press office on +44 (0) 20 7427 1082 / (0) 7791 755 415
2. The hearing will take place on 23 June in Court 1, Royal Courts of Justice, London from 1030.
3. Reprieve’s skeleton argument can be downloaded in full at the bottom of this page
Key extracts are as follows:
1. The Applicant applies for habeas corpus. He is a citizen of Pakistan. He was captured by UK forces in Iraq in February 2004 and handed over to US forces pursuant to a “Memorandum of Understanding”, which expressly provided for the return of such prisoners upon request. He was then subject to “rendition” from Iraq to Afghanistan by US forces, and has been held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan since about June 2004. At Bagram he is known as Salah Mohammed Ali and has been given a Bagram ‘Internment Serial Number’ of 1433. UK officials knew of the proposed transfer before it took place, but took no steps to prevent it. It is common ground that the transfer “should have been questioned at the time” (Secretary of State for Defence, Hansard, 26 February 2009, Col. 394) [C14].
[…]
3. The Applicant has now been in continuous detention without trial for over 7 years. His physical and mental state is reported to be very poor. He was held incommunicado for 6 years and has only recently made telephone contact with his family.
[…]
11. The transfer of detainees from UK to US custody was governed by a 2003 Memorandum of Understanding (“the 2003 MoU”) [C50, H1]. The UK is the “Detaining Power” and the US is the “Accepting Power” under the MoU. The MoU contained the following provisions:
[…]
4. Any prisoners of war, civilian internees, and civilian detainees transferred by a Detaining Power will be returned by the Accepting Power to the Detaining Power without delay upon request by the Detaining Power.
5. The release or repatriation or removal to territories outside Iraq of transferred prisoners of war, civilian internees, and civilian detainees will only be made upon the mutual arrangement of the Detaining Power and the Accepting Power…
[…]
33. The writ [of habeas corpus] is available to persons held under the de facto control of a person in England, wherever the detainee is held in the world […] the Court’s task on a habeas application is not to determine whether sufficient control in fact exists. Farbey & Sharpe state the principle as follows:
“The writ will issue even where the respondent’s control is doubtful, and the court will determine on the return whether or not the respondent has taken sufficient steps to produce the party (p. 198)”.
The issue of the writ is the means of testing the degree of control that the Respondents are capable of exercising. The Applicant does not have to prove control to obtain the writ. He only need prove that the issue of control is at least doubtful.
3. Further information on Yunus Rahmatullah can be found here: http://www.reprieve.org.uk/cases/yunusrahmatullah
4. William Hague interviewed in the New Statesman by Rowan Williams, 17/06/2011:
RW: And that example you've just given - torture - is a clear line in the sand, is it?
WH: Absolutely, yes.
RW: Would you say the same thing about extraordinary renditions?
WH: Yes. Absolutely. Actually, in opposition I criticised Guantanamo Bay and rendition flights
http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2011/06/foreign-policy-china-world
5. From a William Hague foreign policy speech, trailed on 15/09/2010: “It is not in our character as a nation to have a foreign policy without a conscience”.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23878058-william-hague-promises-foreign-policy-with-conscience.do
Reprieve, a legal action charity, uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay. Reprieve investigates, litigates and educates, working on the frontline, to provide legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves. Reprieve promotes the rule of law around the world, securing each person’s right to a fair trial and saving lives.
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