Shame of UK’s role in torture
Devastating admission that Britain in the Blair years WAS complicit in kidnap and torture of a Gaddafi dissident
THE Prime Minister has apologised on behalf of the UK Government to a Libyan dissident and his wife after they were delivered to Tripoli and tortured by Colonel Gaddafi’s forces in 2004.
Theresa May said Abdul Hakim Belhaj and Fatima Boudchar had suffered ‘appalling treatment’.
Miss Boudchar, who was pregnant at the time of her kidnap, has accepted the apology and is to receive a £500,000 payout.
A tip-off from MI6 is said to have led to the couple’s rendition. The incident occurred under Tony Blair’s government before the notorious ‘deal in the desert’ with the tyrant.
BRITAIN endured a ‘day of national shame’ yesterday after ministers were forced to make an unprecedented admission of the country’s complicity in torture and kidnap.
The UK’s most senior law officer accepted that Tony Blair’s New Labour government and MI6 had helped send a Libyan dissident and his pregnant wife back into the clutches of Colonel Gaddafi in 2004.
Issuing an unreserved apology, Attorney General Jeremy Wright said Abdul Hakim Belhadj – a sworn enemy of Gaddafi – and his wife Fatima Boudchar had been delivered to the tyrant’s henchmen and mistreated with the help of UK spies.
As MPs demanded a full inquiry into the scandal, Jack Straw, Labour’s foreign secretary at the time, admitted he had approved the sharing of intelligence that had led to the pair being captured and abused.
But Mr Blair stayed silent last night, as did Sir Mark Allen, the former head of counter-terrorism at MI6, who has also been implicated in the affair.
As well as Mr Wright’s statement to the Commons yesterday, Downing Street also issued a letter of apology to the couple from Prime Minister Theresa May, in which said she was ‘profoundly sorry’ for their ‘appalling treatment’. ‘The UK Government’s actions contributed to your detention, rendition and suffering. We accept this was a failing on our part. I apologise unreservedly,’ the letter said.
But critics said the Government had to do more to erase the stain of Britain’s complicity in the practice of extraordinary rendition – where suspects are flown to another country for imprisonment and interrogation.
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael said: ‘This is a day of national shame for Britain. We still need an inquiry to unpick who knew what and when about this disgraceful episode.’ On a day of dramatic developments: Mr Blair, who was prime minister in 2004, was silent in the face of fresh questions about what he knew of Britain’s role in the scandal;
Calls mounted for a full judge-led inquiry to uncover the unvarnished truth about the shameful involvement of the UK in the CIA’s barbaric torture programme during the so-called ‘war on terror’;
Ministers admitted that the ‘unacceptable practices’ of some international partners – taken to mean the US – should have been ‘understood much sooner’;
Mrs Boudchar will receive a £500,000 payout but Mr Belhadj, who has repeatedly said he would drop his long-running civil case for an apology for Britain’s role in his abuse, would not accept a penny;
Mrs Boudchar accused Mr Blair of committing a ‘criminal act’;
Downing Street said the Government would ‘co-operate fully’ with any inquiry by Parliament’s secretive Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), adding: ‘The papers are available to them.’
Mr Belhadj, 52, a former member of the Libyan Islamist Fighting Group (LIFG), and his wife were kidnapped by the US in Thailand after a tip-off by MI6.
They were handed over to Gaddafi in the same month as Mr Blair struck his notorious ‘deal in the desert’ with the despot. He suffered six years of torture in the tyrant’s brutal dungeons – during which time he was interrogated by British spies. His wife was held for four months. In his statement to Parliament, Mr Wright said the out-of-court settlement included dropping claims against the British Government, Mr Straw and Sir Mark. But he stressed that there was no admission of liability.
It is understood the UK has agreed to pay the couple’s ‘substantial’ legal fees. The Government had already spent nearly £2million of taxpayers’ money on legal attempts to silence Mr Belhadj, who said yesterday: ‘For more than six years I have made clear that I had a single goal in bringing this case: justice.
‘Now, at last, justice has been done. It is a historic day. A great society does not torture; does not help others to torture; and, when it makes mistakes, it accepts them and apologises. Britain has made a wrong right today.’
Mr Straw was last night facing growing calls to front up to an investigation over his role in Mr Belhadj’s kidnap. MI6 answers to whoever is Foreign Secretary – and at the time it was Mr Straw. In an extraordinary statement yesterday, he said he had ‘limited’ recollection of the events, but had ascertained that on March 1, 2004, he gave oral approval for ‘some information to be shared with international partners’.
But he added: ‘In every case where my approval was sought, I assumed, and was entitled to assume, that the actions for which my approval was sought were lawful. This included in appropriate cases obtaining assurances as to the humane treatment of those concerned.’
In December 2005, however, Mr Straw had told the Commons’ foreign affairs select committee: ‘Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories and that the officials are lying, that I am lying, that behind this there is some kind of secret state which is in league with some dark forces in the United States... there simply is no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition, full stop.’
Sapna Malik, of Leigh Day solicitors, who represented the couple, said: ‘The Government has rightly acknowledged that, even in the fields of counter-terrorism and international relations, there are lines which must not be crossed and which were crossed here, with devastating consequences for my clients.’
Cori Crider, of the charity Reprieve, said: ‘Britain lost its way when it got mixed up in rendition, but today, by apologising for its part in that dark story, the UK has stood on the right side of history.’
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