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UK intelligence chief denies 'complicity' in torture

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] Chief of the UK Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) John Scarlett said that the British secret service did not participate in or condone torture, during a BBC radio interview broadcast Monday. Scarlett denied that the SIS, better known as MI6, was involved in torture, saying there has been "no torture and there is no complicity with torture." Scarlett added that, "ur officers are as committed to the values and the human rights values of liberal democracy as anybody else." Scarlett's comments come after Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Home Secretary Alan Johnson denied allegations of torture in a joint article appearing in the Telegraph on Sunday. Miliband and Johnson wrote: There is no truth in suggestions that the security and intelligence services operate without control or oversight. There is no truth in the more serious suggestion that it is our policy to collude in, solicit, or directly participate in abuses of prisoners. Nor is it true that alleged wrongdoing is covered up.Miliband and Johnson's statement came in response to a a report published last week by the UK Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights calling for an independent inquiry into allegations regarding government complicity in the torture of UK terrorism suspects in Pakistan and elsewhere. Allegations in the report include the complicity in torture of UK resident Binyam Mohammed before he was brought to Guantanamo Bay. Last month, the UK Metropolitan Police Service announced that it was investigating the alleged mistreatment of Mohammed by intelligence officers. Mohammed claims that he was tortured by Pakistani agents and interrogated by FBI and MI5 agents complicit in his abuse. He was transferred to Morocco, allegedly part of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, where he claims that British agents supplied his torturers with questions.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on August 10, 2009 (boomark / email).