May defends UK agents over torture claims
Prime Minister backs intelligence services after damning report finds UK knew of mistreatment
Theresa May defended the intelligence services after a report found that British officers should be investigated over torture and rendition following the September 11 attacks. It said it was “beyond doubt” that the intelligence agencies knew that the US was mistreating detainees.
THERESA MAY has defended the intelligence services after a report found British officers could be prosecuted over torture and rendition in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
The intelligence and security committee report found no “smoking gun” indicating that security and intelligence agencies had a policy of deliberately overlooking reports of mistreatment, and no evidence that UK officers directly carried out physical mistreatment of detainees. But it said it was “beyond doubt” that British intelligence agencies knew at an early stage that the US was mistreating detainees.
“More could have been done” by both UK security agencies and government ministers to try to influence US behaviour, and not doing so “put the UK in breach of its commitment to the international prohibition of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment”, it concluded. Mrs May welcomed the report, adding: “It took too long [for UK intelligence agencies] to recognise that guidance and training for staff was inadequate, and too long to understand fully and take appropriate action on the risks arising from our engagement with international partners on detainee issues.”
However, she noted that, with hindsight, it had become clear UK personnel were working in a new environment for which, in some cases, they were not prepared. She also pointed to the Consolidated Guidance, issued in 2010, which provided clear governance for interaction with detainees.
Mrs May said: “Very few countries have … let themselves be held accountable in this manner, and it is to the Security and Intelligence Agencies’ and Ministry of Defence’s credit that they have embedded these procedures.”
The report found evidence of two cases in which UK personnel were directly involved in the mistreatment of detainees administered by others.
One case has been investigated by the Metropolitan Police but, referring to the second case, the report said: “There must be a question as to whether the Service Police (collectively the Army, Navy and RAF police units) investigation should be reopened.”
An MOD spokesman confirmed a member of the Armed Forces may be investigated, and said the report had been passed to the Service Police Legacy Investigation team, which would decide if an investigation was necessary. Johnny Mercer, the Conservative MP, said: “I am tired of this tokenistic approach to historical allegations.”
The report found that Britain’s intel- ligence agencies did not want to upset their US counterparts because they may have lost access to intelligence.
Dominic Grieve, chairman of the intelligence and security committee, said that, after 9/11, the US told British counterparts that “the rule book is in the trash bin and the gloves are off”. However, this was mistaken for rhetoric.
Britain does not approve of torture and does not do it. The two reports published yesterday by the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) essentially support those statements. After reviewing many hours of oral statements and tens of thousands of official documents, the ISC did identify questionable behaviour in the aftermath of 9/11 – and civil liberties campaigners have, of course, leapt on it. There were, for example, incidents in which British agents allegedly witnessed the abuse of detainees or potentially colluded with rendition.
This happened during a period in which it was feared another large-scale attack on the West was imminent, and the UK was fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with the US as its ally. It would have been unusual for Britain to have broken off intelligence sharing with the Americans at that point, even if it was corrupted by information obtained unethically. Nevertheless, the ISC report finds “no evidence… that any US rendition flight transited the UK with a detainee on board” and no evidence British personnel “directly carried out physical mistreatment of detainees”.
Moreover, since 2009/10, UK intelligence and Armed Forces staff have operated under a Consolidated Guidance policy on the treatment of overseas detainees. The ISC does have useful recommendations for its implementation: greater clarity on ministerial discretion, more transparency. But in one interview, Dominic Grieve MP, head of the ISC, asserted strongly that since 2010, the position of the UK in relation of detainees is entirely different. In other words, this inquiry refers to a moment in history from which the country has long since moved on.
The Left, however, has not. Their belief that Britain is engaged in an imperialist conspiracy with America for which it must face justice is not just absurd, it is ruining lives. British veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have faced numerous, exhausting inquiries, and when the result dissatisfies their accusers, another inquiry is launched. Baroness Chakrabarti, Labour’s shadow attorney general, now calls for a “full-blown” judge-led investigation into the abuse of detainees – even though the ISC clearly states, to repeat, that it has found no evidence of direct guilt on the part of UK personnel. Let this be the last historical inquiry into this matter: Britain can heed the ISC’S recommendations and move on.