Report: Britain's Complicity in Torture Flights

The human rights group Cage Prisoners has released a new report that details British government complicity in the practice of "extraordinary rendition" (torture flights) which resulted in detainee abuses and torture in other countries and at Gitmo.

The report includes details from many of the suspects (ie. kidnap victims) involved, their interrogations by British intelligence in countries including Egypt, Uzbekistan, Morocco, Gambia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jordan and Libya - all known for their torture practices - and the endorsement of those British intel agencies to subsequently hand them over to the US military in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba without regard for their well-being.

According to former CIA agent Bob Baer, "If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear - never to see them again - you send them to Egypt."
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Via The Independent:

The report, Fabricating Terrorism - British Complicity in Renditions and Terror, is a scathing indictment of the British government's "systematic violations of international law" over its co-operation with the US authorities in the detention of British citizens and residents at the US-run facility in Cuba. The research, compiled by the human rights group Cage Prisoners, plots British involvement in the cases of 13 current or former Guantanamo detainees - either British citizens or residents.

All the detainees in the report consistently testified that UK authorities were aware of their plight and unwilling to intervene despite the knowledge that they were either at risk of torture or said they had been tortured.

There is no suggestion British authorities played any part in torturing the detainees but the report does argue consistent co-operation between the US and UK has led to an "international chain of abuse" that flies in the face of the British government projecting itself as a leader in the field of human rights.

British authorities admitted in February, 2006, that torture flights "have landed at commercial British airports and received help from UK air traffic control" and last year Jack Straw admitted that Britain's MI6 had interrogated at least one Gitmo detainee, Mr al-Habashi, in Pakistan prior to his "rendition".

Fabricating Terrorism: British Complicity in Renditions and Torture states plainly that rendition and extraordinary rendition are illegal and that the British Government's position purposely misinterprets the law to cloak its underhand[sic] practices. The only legal transfer recognised by international law, such as the United Nations conventions, is extradition. Rendition, however, is described as the transfer of individual(s) from one State to another without recourse to due process of either country involved, or under the regulatory influence of internationally recognised laws.[8]
[8] See Articles 5, 9, 12 and 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

The UN against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment clearly prohibits torture flights:

Article 3 General comment on its implementation

1. No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.

2. For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.

These renditions are clear violations of international law and the countries involved in the practice should be prosecuted. Whether there will be sufficient public will to do so remains to be seen.