A newly-released report has revealed that British authorities have lobbied to hide the UK’s role in the US Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) torture and interrogation program.
The report, published by The Guardian on Saturday, said the UK ambassador to the US met members of the Senate on several occasions between 2012 and 2014, while they were investigating the CIA’s rendition program.
Under the extraordinary rendition program, American military forces and intelligence operatives would snatch “terror suspects” overseas and transport them to one of the many CIA-run interrogation and torture centers in allied countries across the globe and the US.
According to the report, which is based on released logs, the British ambassador, Peter Westmacott, met US Senators at 11 occasions, including two meetings with intelligence committee chair, Diane Feinstein, at a time when the committee was deciding how much of its report into the CIA program should be revealed to the public.
The released documents have prompted fresh concerns that the British government lobbied to censor key parts of the US Senate report referring to its Indian Ocean territory Diego Garcia, which is leased to the US as a military base.
Human rights groups believe the British territory played a key role in facilitating the CIA’s rendition program.
Clare Algar, the executive director at Reprieve, said the released documents give “more evidence of the desperate attempts being made by the UK to censor the Senate’s report on CIA torture.”
A confirmation that the British territory was involved in extraordinary rendition could leave the British government vulnerable to legal action.
Last month, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Poland broke the European human rights convention by allowing the CIA to run a secret jail on its territory. The court ordered the Polish government to pay two suspects detained at the secret jail 100,000 euros and 130,000 euros respectively in compensation.
CAH/HJL/SS
No comments:
Post a Comment