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UK admits handing over Iraq prisoners to US for rendition

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, Feb 27, IRNA – The UK government is under growing pressure to hold an independent inquiry into the UK’s role in the extraordinary rendition of terror suspects after admitting for the first time handing over Iraq prisoners to the US that were secretly flown to Afghanistan.

Despite previous denial for the past three years, Defence Secretary John Hutton told MPs on Thursday that British troops were involved in at least one case of rendition.

Two suspects captured and detained by British Special Forces outside Baghdad in 2004 were subsequently removed by the US to Afghanistan where they remain in detention, Hutton revealed.

In response to the admission, Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition, called for a full Government inquiry into British involvement in the US rendition program.

Tyrie said the government was also forced last year to admit after earlier denials that US aircraft transporting abducted prisoners landed on the British dependent territory of Diego Garcia in 2002. US assurances that it did not use torture were unreliable, he also said.

But Hutton insisted that there was “no evidence” that the two, believed to be Pakistani members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a proscribed organisation with links to al-Qaeda, had been tortured after being handed over to the Americans.

The admission is the latest in a series of revelations that campaigners say undermine official denials that Britain systematically helped to facilitate the sending of suspects for US interrogation to countries where torture is not illegal.

Calls for a full inquiry are being supported by human rights organisations, including Reprieve which has accused the government of repeatedly misleading the public in colluding with the US in the illegal practice of extraordinary rendition.

"A judicial public inquiry into this whole poisonous episode is the only hope for lancing the boil and moving on," Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty civil rights group also said.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said there was “enough credible allegations and reluctant ministerial admissions of wrongdoing to warrant a full-scale independent inquiry into UK involvement in the whole rotten system of US abuse including torture, renditions to torture, abusive detention policies, and disappearances.

“The drip, drip of allegations and admissions does huge damage to the international reputation of the UK and the ability of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to say that they are fighting on the side of justice and truth," said HRW spokesman Tom Porteous.

Allegations that MI5 officers were complicit in US torture have also been made in the case of British resident Binyam Mohamed, who was finally released from Guantanamo Bay this week.