CIA discounted British concerns, say MPs

· Americans ignored caveats on intelligence
· ‘Serious implications’ after British residents seized

Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday July 26, 2007
The Guardian

MI5 contributed to the seizure of two British residents by the CIA, which secretly flew them to Guantánamo Bay in a move with “serious implications for the intelligence relationship” between Britain and the US, a cross-party committee of senior MPs said in a damning report released yesterday.The security service passed information to the Americans on Bisher al-Rawi, an Iraqi, and Jamil el-Banna, from Jordan, as they flew to the Gambia to set up a business there in 2002. Both had lived in Britain for many years.

Mr Rawi was released from Guantánamo in March after evidence emerged in a British court that he helped MI5 monitor Abu Qatada, the radical cleric. Mr Banna is still held in the US base on Cuba. Though the US has said he can leave, the British government said his UK residence status had expired because of his absence.

In its report yesterday, the parliamentary intelligence and security committee said MI5 was “indirectly and inadvertently” involved in the rendition of the two men by passing on the information, which included claims about their Islamist sympathies.

The committee said it was satisfied MI5 did not intend the men to be arrested and had used “caveats” specifically forbidding the CIA to seize the men as a result of the information it handed over. The case showed a “lack of regard on the part of the US for UK concerns - despite strong protests - and that has serious implications for the intelligence relationship,” the MPs said.

In unprecedented criticism of Britain’s security and intelligence agencies, the committee said both MI6 and MI5 “were slow to appreciate [the] change in US rendition policy” - a reference to the practice of seizing terrorist suspects and flying them to secret destinations where they risked being tortured.

The report was sent to the prime minister on June 28 but released by Downing Street only yesterday. The committee recognised there was a “great deal of ‘tough talk’ being used by the US”. But it added that MI6 and MI5 should have detected sooner what the CIA was up to.

The brushing aside of British concerns had been “surprising and concerning” in “this usually close relationship”. The MPs said: “Secret detention, without legal or other representation, is of itself mistreatment. Therefore, where there is a real possibility of ‘rendition to detention’ to a secret facility, even it would be for a limited time, we consider that approval must never be given.”

The full extent of British logistic support for America’s “extraordinary rendition” programme was first disclosed by the Guardian, which reported in September 2005 that aircraft operated by the CIA had flown in and out of UK civilian and military airports hundreds of times. The Council of Europe and European parliament have since reported that the CIA operated secret prisons in Europe where terrorism suspects could be interrogated and were allegedly tortured.

In their report, the MPs said there was no evidence any British agency had been “directly involved” in America’s rendition programme. Paul Murphy, the former Labour cabinet minister who chairs the committee, castigated the government over its failure to keep proper records.

“Our inquiry has not been helped by the fact that government departments have had such difficulty in establishing the facts from their own records in relation to requests to conduct renditions through UK airspace,” he said.

Clive Stafford Smith, legal director of Reprieve, which represents prisoners open to abuse, said last night: “The report makes clear some awful facts about the arrest and rendition of Jamil el-Banna and Bisher al-Rawi. The British government sent the Americans incorrect information that led directly to the arrest of these men … Jamil remains in Guantánamo Bay while the UK dithers about whether to allow him home to his wife and five British children. The UK started this chain of suffering. It must end it and bring Jamil back.”

Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative who chairs the all-party group on rendition, said: “In response to a question from me, the prime minister refused to condemn extraordinary rendition.”

British officials last night stressed that the report concluded that intelligence-sharing relationships, particularly with the US, were crucial to countering the threat posed to the UK by global terrorism.

RSS TrackBack URL

Translate: