US ‘demanded change to torture report’

THE US government demanded last- minute changes to a sensitive report into the UK’s complicity in torture, it was claimed yesterday.

The investigation by Parliament’s secretive Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) – to be published tomorrow – will call for sweeping changes to how British spies operate in the field when faced with evidence of mistreatment of captives.

But The Times reported that its publicaees tion had been ‘thrown into confusion’ by a US request for changes.

The ISC, a group of MPs and peers that scrutinises the work of the security services, sent two reports on the mistreatment and rendition of terror suspects after the September 11 attacks to Prime Minister Theresa May last month.

One focused on the treatment of detain- between 2001 and 2010 and the other on current issues.

Last night committee chairman Dominic Grieve rejected suggestions that the reports had been ‘censored’ to meet US concerns. He said: ‘The committee has agreed to redact just one word in over 300 pages to meet a US security concern.’

The second ISC reports is expected to be critical of Whitehall and a refusal to allow the ISC to speak to frontline agents.