Britain unveils guidelines for interrogating suspected terrorists. The guidelines to which British military intelligence operators must adhere to in the interrogation of terrorist suspects were made public, as Gordon Brown announced to the Parliament. The prime minister wants to show that Britain condemns torture and that the publication of these guidelines is to protect the reputation of British security and intelligence services. Brown, subsequently, appointed a former judge to permanently monitor the compliance to these instructions.
The move comes in the midst of allegations that British agents participated in the interrogation-cum-torture of terrorism suspects such as Binyam Mohamed. The Ethiopian national and resident of the UK said that when he was arrested in 2002, there was complicity between British intelligence services and those who allegedly tortured him during his detention in Pakistan and Morocco under US custody. He asserts that he was on the list of the United States ‘extraordinary rendition policy’ and entered a ghost prison system run by US and UK intelligence agents.
Extraordinary rendition is defined as the arrest and extrajudicial transfer of a suspect from one state to another. This has been described by critics as ‘torture by proxy.’ Ghost prisons also known as CIA secret prisons outside the US have been called ‘black holes’ or ‘black sites.’ These are places where US anti-terror campaign ‘enemy combatants’ were transferred for interrogation purposes that allegedly included torture techniques such as waterboarding. Abu Ghraib prisons in Iraq and the Bagram base in Afghanistan are said to be two of these ‘black sites.’
According to reports, British officials passed questions to the torturers in some of these ghost prisons.
Before he was finally transferred to Guantanamo, Mohamed asserts that he came from prisons in Pakistan, Morocco, and Afghanistan. He claims that interrogators tortured him by repeatedly cutting his penis and chest with the use of scalpels and razor blades, while in the Moroccan prison. Mohamed has been released from Guantanamo and allowed to return to the UK less than a month ago.
Downing Street has denied that the announcement of Brown has anything to do with the case of Mohamed. “It is right that this Parliament and the people know what those involved in the interrogation of detainees can and cannot do. This will put beyond doubt the terms in which our intelligence agencies and our staff work,” said Brown.
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Via UPI
