UK torture in the ‘war on terror’

Our investigation has established beyond reasonable doubt that Britain has been deeply and directly involved in the rendition, secret detention and torture of prisoners in the ‘war on terror’. This briefing provides an overview of that involvement.

British involvement in torture during the ‘war on terror’ is now a matter of historical record, with the intelligence agencies – the Security Service (MI5), the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) – having been deeply and directly implicated in abuse on a number of levels. As such, it is now established beyond any form of reasonable doubt that British intelligence worked hand-in-glove with a number of counterterrorism partners – in particular the Central Intelligence Agency – to identify and apprehend suspects and disappear them into secret detention where torture was endemic. Once suspects were in secret detention, British intelligence and security agencies were, in many cases, intimately involved in the torture that took place, either by participating in the interrogations directly, by providing the intelligence that formed the basis of the torture, or else by receiving intelligence that had been gained through torture (much of it, unsurprisingly, of little intelligence value). In addition, British territory was clearly used as a key logistical hub for the global network of secret detention and torture, with the UK facilitating the movement of suspects between secret prisons – in relation to both mainland UK airspace and territory, and that of the US-leased base on Diego Garcia (which formed part of the British Indian Ocean Territory).

The evidential record of UK complicity in torture in the ‘war on terror’ has been compiled over a number of years through the painstaking work of journalists, NGOs, lawyers and parliamentarians, with our own previous work on the subject putting the matter beyond any reasonable doubt.[1] A 2018 inquiry by the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), moreover, reviewed over 40,000 documents (many of which remain classified) and presented devastating findings relation to the involvement of British intelligence in prisoner mistreatment between 2001 and 2010, concluding that the agencies ‘tolerated actions, and took others, that we regard as inexcusable’.[2] Importantly, involvement was not limited to a small number of isolated infractions, but was widespread and carried out with what seems to have been at least some knowledge on the part of senior officials and ministers. Indeed, while the intelligence agencies maintained that they were not aware of the systematic mistreatment of prisoners by foreign partners, the ISC was clear that the multiple reports from personnel on the ground, combined with media and other reporting, make it ‘difficult to comprehend how those at the top of the office did not’ have knowledge of the situation.[3]

The Detainee Inquiry in 2013 found that UK intelligence officers were aware of ‘a range of treatment issues’ by liaison partners. These ‘issues’ included hooding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, physical assaults, inhumane detention facilities and ‘questionable methods of transfer between detention sites’. In some cases, these issues did not affect British involvement in the mistreatment. As the Inquiry noted: ‘there are some instances where UK officers continued to engage with detainees held by liaison partners in various locations after ill-treatment had either been witnessed or alleged’[4]

For example, in one case an MI6 officer reported to head office in September 2004 the conditions of detention at one US facility in Iraq, where prisoners were held in small wooden crates, each ‘slightly less than 200cm long, about 180cm high and 120cm wide’.[5] When a second MI6 officer arrived at the facility in January 2005, he found what he described as a ‘torture centre’. In testimony to the ISC, this officer stated that:

[It] was a place where the US took detainees and subjected them to various things which I regard as torture and I think in most people’s understanding of the term is torture. So, most notably, when people were brought there, they were put in wooden crates, which were designed so that you could neither lie down nor stand up and they were obviously dark.[6]

Likewise, the agencies clearly knew of the existence of CIA ‘black sites’, with internal memos referencing ‘“black” facilities’ and ‘other centres where the chances of complaint from allied representatives are slight’.[7]

Consistent denials

Despite demonstrable evidence of British collusion in torture, and knowledge of the abuses which were taking place in respect of individual detainees, senior intelligence officials and ministers have outright refused to acknowledge any involvement in torture. In some cases, such denials were clearly lies (by omission if nothing else). For example, in response to the initial allegations of UK involvement in CIA rendition operations,[8] then-foreign secretary Jack Straw was asked by the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs in December 2005 to:

give a categorical statement to this Committee now that this government is not involved in any type of rendition, that we are not assisting, with the Americans, in rendition of their suspects or their personnel and that we are definitely not involved in any rendition of anyone for the purposes of being taken to another country to a secret site, or whatever, for the purposes of torture?

It is now known that, by this point, Straw had personally authorised involvement by MI6 in numerous rendition operations, many of which were to countries where the risk of torture or other mistreatment was significant.[9] Nonetheless, he issued a flat denial:

First of all on your last point [involvement in rendition for torture], Eric, yes, I absolutely categorically can give you that undertaking… Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories and that the officials are lying, that I am lying, that behind this there is some kind of secret state which is in league with some dark forces in the United States … there simply is no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition full stop, because we have not been, and so what on earth a judicial inquiry would start to do I have no idea. I do not think it would be justified.[10]

Similarly, prime minister Tony Blair insisted in 2005 that:

the notion that I, or the Americans, or anybody else approve or condone torture, or ill-treatment, or degrading treatment, that is completely and totally out of order in any set of circumstances … I have absolutely no evidence to suggest that anything illegal has been happening here at all, and I am not going to start ordering inquiries into this, that and the next thing.[11]

Senior intelligence officials have also long denied involvement in torture. In oral testimony to an earlier configuration of the ISC in November 2006, the Chief of MI6 Sir John Scarlett admitted that the agency had directly assisted ‘a very small number of renditions where we were certain that there was no risk of torture or CIDT, and where the circumstances would permit this assistance without the breach of our country’s international obligations’. However, Scarlett was adamant that MI6 had:

never assisted any renditions into so-called ‘black facilities’ … [nor] renditions to third countries, i.e. renditions to countries other than the USA or the detainee’s country of origin … [nor] renditions to the detainee’s country of origin where there was a real risk of CIDT or torture, or which would breach the UK’s international obligations.[12]

It was this misleading of the public record by MI6 (with or without the connivance of the ISC) which enabled the committee to conclude in 2007 that UK intelligence agencies had overseen only minor, isolated infractions of UK policy, and overall had not acted improperly. There was, it concluded, ‘no evidence that the UK Agencies were complicit in any “Extraordinary Rendition” operations’, where these involved a ‘real risk of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment’.[13] Likewise, the ISC accepted the agencies’ now demonstrably false claims that, with regard to sharing intelligence on specific suspects with liaison partners, there were robust safeguards to ensure that such intelligence was not used in torture or mistreatment:

Where there are concerns, the Agencies seek credible assurances that any action taken on the basis of intelligence provided by the UK Agencies would be humane and lawful. Where credible assurances cannot be obtained, the Chief of SIS [MI6] explained ‘… then we cannot provide the information.’[14]

Similar denial characterises the government’s response to the ISC’s more comprehensive findings in 2018. Prime minister Theresa May’s statement to parliament in June 2018, released alongside the ISC reports, rearticulated this position: ‘UK personnel are bound by applicable principles of domestic and international law. The government do not participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment for any purpose.’[15] In the ensuing House of Commons debate, Foreign and Commonwealth Office minister Sir Alan Duncan MP reiterated this claim, asserting that ‘we can and should be proud of the work done by our intelligence and service personnel’ and that Britain should feel confident in being able to ‘maintain our global reputation as a champion for human rights across the world’. Notwithstanding the ISC’s findings, Duncan took ‘issue with [the] use of the word “complicity”, which I think was a notch too strong. I think it is honest to say that the ISC found no evidence that the agencies had deliberately turned a blind eye.’ Likewise, Duncan stated that he would:

be grateful if [shadow foreign minister Emily Thornberry MP] thought again about the words she used when she accused officials in our agencies—I think that I quote accurately—of being ‘involved in torture’, they were not involved in torture, so I really think the right hon. Lady may want to come back to the House and say that, actually, that is an inaccurate accusation.[16]

Other ministers followed suit, as did the government’s more detailed, written response to the ISC reports.[17]

The British approach: maintaining plausible deniability

We have argued elsewhere that there emerged a peculiarly British approach to torture during the ‘war on terror’, shaped largely by the consequences of earlier, colonial forms of (more direct) British torture.[18] Paramount in this context was the need to maintain robust forms of plausible deniability whilst simultaneously maintaining operational leeway to engage in torturous practices. Procedurally, this played out through the development of clear parameters within which intelligence personnel would need to act. As such, officials should neither have the legal responsibility for prisoners (they would rarely, if ever, be the formal detaining authority), nor be physically present during periods of mistreatment and torture. Adhering to these principles ensured that the UK could remain full counterterrorism partners of the US and other allies. It could target those considered threats to national security by ensuring that they were subjected to harsh treatment on the (dubious) assumption that they would elicit valuable intelligence. At the same time, the UK could insulate itself from allegations of abuse, with both the intelligence and security agencies themselves, and ministers with responsibility for the agencies, able to maintain their narrative of denial, and to continue to insist that the UK counterterrorism effort was underpinned by a robust commitment to human rights.

This particular approach emerged immediately after the start of military operations in Afghanistan. As British intelligence on the ground began to interrogate those held by the United States, guidance was issued by headquarters in London. Access to prisoners in Afghan detention facilities was permitted by MI6 providing that two strict conditions were adhered to: ‘a) that at no time were they to be under MI6 control “as this would mean that we would incur Geneva Convention responsibilities for them”, and b) that they “would not be subject to coercion or torture and generally treated humanely”.’[19]

In line with this guidance, the ISC inquiry found that at no point did British intelligence have detaining authority over individuals, that there were no instances of direct physical mistreatment by UK intelligence officials, and that there were only two cases where they were directly involved in the mistreatment perpetrated by others.[20] In all other cases, British personnel were absent while the torture took place. Indeed, at times officials left the room specifically for the period of the torture, before returning again to continue their involvement in the interrogation.[21] Similarly, the ISC found no evidence of British intelligence undertaking rendition operations unilaterally; instead, they supported others in doing so, through planning and coordination, including the provision of funding and locational intelligence, in ways which ‘amount to simple outsourcing of action which they knew they were not allowed to undertake themselves’.[22]

Operating in this grey area required a particular approach to recordkeeping and reporting. Interrogations were often framed as ‘owned’ by a liaison service and ‘we just happened to be there’, while reports were routinely and systematically filled in with ‘no’ against the list of potential mistreatment concerns in the template.[23] This was in play from the earliest phase of the ‘war on terror’, with evidence that intelligence officers failed to produce, or altered the production of, documentary records relating to involvement in the mistreatment of prisoners. Many of MI5’s ‘prisoner interview reports’, introduced in January 2002, appear to have been misplaced, or not to have been completed in the first place. MI6 did not maintain formal records until April 2005, and even after this date there are multiple cases where the ‘detainee contact reports’ were completed either partially or not at all.[24] This was no mistake: one MI6 officer testified to the ISC that ‘whilst it may be SIS [MI6] culture to record everything, there were situations [of mistreatment] where people would say something was “not for the write-up”’. The officer testified that there:

was quite an emphasis then on not putting things in writing … Because presumably they didn’t want the ISC to read the documents later … It wasn’t as if the basic attitude to record-keeping had been abandoned; it was more that the more complicated stuff that was at the fringes of normal was not being recorded.[25]

Where reports from field officers did describe mistreatment at particular facilities, these appear to have been altered before being passed to the ISC. In one case, an MI6 officer visiting a US-run site witnessed a number of hooded prisoners, with at least one forcibly kept kneeling on his bed in a particular stress position. Nonetheless, a Defence Intelligence legal adviser later persuaded MI6 to remove all mention of this in submissions to the ISC, claiming a ‘misunderstanding’ on the part of the MI6 official who had visited the facility. As one MoD document stated:

In light of the apparent misunderstanding it was agreed that reference to the discussion between [the head of the MoD interrogation team] and the SIS [MI6] operative would be removed from the SIS submission [to the ISC]. A letter was subsequently sent to SIS reiterating the position and thanking SIS for the opportunity of resolving this matter before it was exposed to the ISC.[26]

Direct support for capture and rendition

UK intelligence agencies played a key role in identifying and locating those considered to be a threat to national security in the context of the ‘war on terror’, as well as a key role in their capture and transfer for detention and interrogation under torture. In this case the British role was either to supply the intelligence needed for the apprehension, or to take part in capture operations as formal secondary partners, ensuring that they were not directly responsible for prisoners.

In the case of Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna, for example, the passing of UK intelligence to the CIA about their whereabouts was central to their capture in The Gambia and subsequent rendition to a secret prison in Afghanistan, where they were held by the CIA before transfer to US military custody. Both men had been detained in the UK in early November 2002, several days before their disappearance, with MI5 providing to the CIA details of the men’s detention and their travel plans to The Gambia.[27] This led directly to their arrest in Banjul, their transfer into the CIA programme and their disappearance for several weeks before emerging as US military prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. 

Evidence gathered by both the Detainee Inquiry and the ISC make clear that UK involvement in rendition was widespread, including in cases where the likelihood or certainty of torture was clear. The ISC found that British intelligence was deeply involved in this practice, with the agencies knowing about, suggesting, planning, agreeing to, paying for others to conduct or otherwise enabling rendition operations in more than 70 cases.[28] As the Detainee Inquiry concluded:

In a number of instances where the documents indicate that there was some level of UK approval for, or assistance in, a rendition operation by a third country, or the feeding in of questions afterwards, the renditions or proposed renditions were to countries where there were objective grounds for concern about the receiving country’s standards of detainee treatment. In some cases, the UK Courts would not at the time have permitted the UK to deport suspected extremists to those countries because of the risk of mistreatment contrary to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.[29]

Although the specific details of most of these cases remain classified, the central involvement of MI6 in the rendition of Libyan dissidents and their families to Gaddafi’s Libya has been exposed. Documents obtained by Human Rights Watch from a government building in Tripoli in September 2011, in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Gaddafi regime, provide compelling evidence of British involvement in these operations.[30] In one such operation, dissident Sami al-Saadi and his family, including his four children, were rendered from Hong Kong to Libya in March 2004. One memo from the CIA to its Libyan counterpart, dated 23 March 2004, was clear that they were ‘aware that your service had been cooperating with the British to effect [al-Saadi’s] removal to Tripoli’, and offered to step in to ‘render [him] and his family into your custody’.[31] Once in Libya, al-Saadi was detained for six years, during which time he was subjected to beatings with ropes and sticks, as well as electric shocks to the neck, chest and arms.

In a similar operation, dissident Abdel Hakim Belhadj (also known as Abu Abdullah al-Sadiq) was rendered with his wife, Fatima Bouchar (who was pregnant at the time), from Malaysia to Libya. MI6 were aware of their initial detention in Malaysia, and took an active role in organising their rendition back to Libya.[32] The CIA were also made aware, and took the lead in organising their rendition back to Libya (via a refuelling stop in Diego Garcia).[33] That Britain played a key role in this rendition operation was confirmed by a memo from Mark Allen, then Director of Counterterrorism at MI6. Sent to his counterpart in Libya, Musa Kusa, the memo explicitly congratulates Kusa on the ‘safe arrival’ of Belhadj and discusses securing direct British access to the detainee’s interrogations:

Most importantly, I congratulate you on the safe arrival of Abu Abd Allah Sadiq [Belhadj]. This was the least we could do for you and for Libya to demonstrate the remarkable relationship we have built over the years. I am so glad. I was grateful to you for helping the officer we sent out last week. Abu ‘Abd Allah’s information on the situation in this country is of urgent importance to us. Amusingly, we got a request from the Americans to channel requests for information from Abu ‘Abd Allah through the Americans. I have no intention of doing any such thing. The intelligence on Abu ‘Abd Allah was British. I know I did not pay for the air cargo. But I feel I have the right to deal with you direct on this and am very grateful for the help you are giving us.[34]

Again, it is clear that British involvement in these operations was understood at the highest levels, with then-foreign secretary Jack Straw personally authorising the rendition of Belhadj and Boudchar to Libya.[35]

In cases such as these, the operations were clearly unlawful and, given institutional knowledge of the human rights records of receiving states, the agencies could not have reasonably concluded otherwise. Indeed, the documentary record makes clear that senior officials were well aware of the legal problems associated with such operations and the need to conceal British involvement. In one case, for example, MI6 was asked by a liaison partner to make a financial contribution for a rendition. Subsequent emails between MI6 and MI5 indicate that MI5 was reluctant to provide funding given the ‘difficult legal circumstances’, but finally agreed to assist so long as the payment would ‘be made after the event [so that it could be] argued it was not specifically for the flight’.[36] In another case, MI6 paid a large share of the costs of rendering two men in October 2004, in an operation Straw authorised. Although MI6 fed in questions to subsequent interrogations of the two men, they ‘chose not to seek direct access, due to HMG concerns about publicly exposing British involvement in “forced deportations” and detentions’.[37]

The use of UK territory for renditions

The role played by the UK in the CIA’s rendition programme is also highlighted by the degree to which British territory was used by CIA aircraft as refuelling stops while undertaking rendition operations. Collation and analysis of flight data associated with CIA rendition aircraft, and the correlation of this with data concerning prisoner transfers within the torture programme, has allowed us to establish that UK involvement in the rendition programme was much more extensive than previously thought.[38]

British territory was used for the rendition of at least 28 prisoners between secret prisons, some of whom were subjected to torture. These include the two prisoners acknowledged to have passed through Diego Garcia in 2002,[39] as well as Belhadj in March 2004. Likewise, mainland UK was used in the rendition of so-called ‘high-value detainees’ to secret detention in Poland, including Abu Zubaydah, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, all of whom were tortured at the site.[40] Others were taken to secret CIA prisons in Afghanistan, Romania and Lithuania. Still more were rendered to proxy detention in Egypt, Jordan or Morocco on aircraft that used UK territory as a staging post. The UK government has consistently refused to investigate these flights, and has even claimed that it would be impossible to do so.[41] However, given that we now know that the same aircraft were used in operations with direct British involvement, there appears to be a prima facie case for assuming that British intelligence were aware of these additional landings in the UK. Indeed, evidence of UK complicity in this regard has been considered robust enough to launch and sustain a police investigation into the matter.[42]

Direct support for interrogation under torture

Once suspects were in secret detention, British intelligence and security agencies were, in many cases, intimately involved in the torture that took place, either by participating in the interrogations, by providing the intelligence that formed the basis of the torture, or by receiving intelligence gained through torture.

The evidence of British involvement in interrogations under torture is compelling. In the case of British resident Binyam Mohamed, for example, MI5 was closely involved. Mohamed was arrested and detained in Pakistan in April 2002, and tortured while held incommunicado in an Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) interrogation centre. He has told how he was ‘hung up for a week by a leather strap around the wrists so he could only just stand’. At one point, a Pakistani agent loaded a semi-automatic gun:

He pressed it against my chest. He just stood there. I knew I was going to die. He stood like that for five minutes. I looked into his eyes, and I saw my own fear reflected there. I had time to think about it. Maybe he will pull the trigger and I will not die, but be paralysed.[43]

While in Pakistan, Mohamed was visited by an officer from MI5 who had been briefed on his mistreatment by the CIA and clearly knew that he was being tortured. Subsequent litigation in this cases revealed that the CIA had passed at least 42 documents to MI5 before its officer travelled to Pakistan evidencing his torture, including continuous sleep deprivation, shackling and threats of being ‘disappeared’. The documents showed that this mistreatment was ‘having a marked effect upon him and causing him significant mental stress and suffering’, and that, as a consequence, he was being kept under self-harm observation. The UK High Court concluded that ‘the reports provided to the SyS [Security Service] made clear to anyone reading them that BM [Binyam Mohamed] was being subjected to the treatment that we have described and the effect upon him of that intentional treatment’, and that this treatment ‘could readily be contended to be at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by the United States authorities’. The Court concluded that the mistreatment reported by the CIA to MI5, if it ‘had been administered on behalf of the United Kingdom, would clearly have been in breach of [the UK’s policy commitments]’.[44]

In many cases, prisoners were exposed to ‘harsh’ sessions involving abuse from foreign security forces, and ‘softer’ sessions with British personnel.[45] In the context of the US–UK partnership, the Detainee Inquiry found that there was ‘collaborat[ion] over their approach and conduct during detainee interview sessions’, with UK intelligence adopting ‘a more reassuring and friendly manner, which contrasted with the manner adopted by liaison partners’. This strategy was, according to the Inquiry, intimately connected with detainee abuse, with the conclusion that ‘in some cases, UK officers may have turned a blind eye to the use of specific, inappropriate techniques or threats used by others and used this to their advantage when resuming an interview session with a now compliant detainee’.[46]

Such a ‘good cop/bad cop’ strategy has been reported in several contexts, especially where British residents were detained by partner intelligence agencies on the UK’s request. In one case, Jamil Rahman, a British-Bangladesh dual national, was detained for more than two years by Bangladeshi intelligence officers, supported by UK officials. According to Rahman, two men from MI5 were involved in his interrogation, but would leave the room when he refused to answer their questions. While absent, he would be severely beaten before they returned to resume the interrogation (Cobain, 2009). Similar allegations have been made by British-Pakistani dual nationals held in Pakistan. Research by Human Rights Watch found ‘no evidence of UK officials directly participating in torture’, yet concluded that:

UK officials engaged in acts that virtually required that they knew about the use of torture in specific cases. In some cases [British officials met detainees] shortly after sessions in which the individuals had been tortured, when it was likely that clear and visible signs of torture were present.[47]

In one case, UK citizen Salahuddin Amin was detained by the ISI throughout 2004 and tortured repeatedly, including with an electric drill. Between torture sessions, Amin was repeatedly driven to another location where he says that he was questioned by men who identified themselves as MI5 officers. These men asked him the same questions as during the torture sessions, or further questions that then became the basis for future torture sessions.[48]

Likewise, where British intelligence were aware of severe torture at particular facilities, they were found to have devised strategies for continued engagement in ways which would preserve the procedural adherence to human rights and international law. For example, at the facility where MI6 were aware prisoners were being held by the US in small wooden crates, each ‘slightly less than 200cm long, about 180cm high and 120cm wide’, MI6 and MoD lawyers simply formulated a policy forbidding interviews of the men at that site. Instead, the prisoners of interest ‘were transferred to an adjacent Portakabin… where conditions were “to UK standards” to be interviewed, but following the interview they were simply taken back to [the US torture centre].’[49]

Passing questions, receiving intelligence

Even where British intelligence officers did not themselves have direct access to prisoners, there have been numerous occasions where the agencies passed questions to counterterrorism allies for use during interrogations, and received intelligence reports generated as a result of such interrogations.

This was clearly the case in regards to those held by the CIA in its black site programme, despite knowledge of the secret detention and torture to which prisoners were being subjected. For example, both the MI5 and MI6 supplied questions for the interrogation of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed while he was held and tortured in a Polish black site in 2003, and GCHQ approved the use of its intelligence for his questioning, all despite knowledge that he was being mistreated while held in a secret location.[50] Mohammed was, at that time, being subjected to standing sleep deprivation, beatings, kneeling stress positions and 15 separate waterboarding sessions, comprising over 180 applications of the waterboard. The SSCI report details how, during the torture sessions, Mohammed provided information on plots against Heathrow Airport and Canary Wharf, which was then passed to counterterrorism partners.[51]

Likewise, although by May 2002 MI6 was aware that Abu Zubaydah was held in a black site in Thailand, and was being tortured, British intelligence continued to send the CIA questions to be used in his interrogation.[52] Further CIA prisoners, Abd a-Rahim al-Nashiri and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, also claim that British intelligence was complicit in their secret detention and torture, and have lodged complaints in the UK with the Investigatory Powers Tribunal.

These cases were not anomalous. The ISC found at least 232 cases in which UK officials supplied questions or intelligence to partners after they became aware, or suspected, that the detainees in question were being mistreated. In a further 198 cases, British intelligence received information from partners when it was known, or suspected, that such intelligence came from interrogations under torture.[53]

In the case of Binyam Mohamed, for example, MI5 continued to receive reports from CIA interrogations at later stages of his secret detention. As a result of these reports, UK intelligence determined that ‘BM might have further relevant information to provide and that it was in the interests of the national security of the United Kingdom to seek his responses to further questions, ideally through a further interview conducted by the SyS [Security Service]’.[54] MI5 was not granted access to Mohamed by the CIA, although they were aware that Mohamed was being held ‘in a covert location where he was being debriefed’. As a result, they began channelling questions through the CIA for use in interrogations.[55] In one telegram, dated 25 October 2002, MI5 declared itself ‘grateful for the opportunity to provide material to be used in the current debriefing’. Further questions were sent on 5 November 2002, and MI5 received multiple reports from the interrogations in Morocco in February 2003. These reports led MI5 to again request direct access to Mohamed, and to send over 70 further questions.[56] Throughout late 2002 and early 2003, as UK intelligence were supplying questions for, and receiving reports from, Mohamed’s interrogations, Mohamed was being brutally tortured by his captors, who (among other abuses) repeatedly cut his genitals with a scalpel.[57]

It also appears that UK intelligence remained deeply involved in the interrogation under torture of Abdel Hakim Belhadj and Sami al-Saadi after arranging their rendition to Libya. Indeed, Allen’s memo to Kusa made clear that the UK expected direct access to these suspects once in Libyan custody.[58] Belhadj has testified that he was interrogated by three British intelligence officers during two sessions, each lasting around two hours.[59] UK intelligence agencies sent over 1,600 questions to their Libyan counterparts for the interrogations of Belhadj and al-Saadi.[60] Likewise, Sami al-Saadi says that he was interrogated by Libyan, American and British agents while being detained and tortured in Libya.

In another case, the ISC found that an MI6 officer was present while a prisoner was transferred from Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan in a coffin-sized box, which was sealed and then loaded onto a truck to be taken to a waiting US aircraft.[61] It has since been reported that this prisoner was Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, who was transferred by the CIA from Bagram to Egypt, whereupon he was subjected to severe torture.[62] The UK was directly implicated in these abuses, with the ISC finding that ‘MI5 continued to pass questions for [al-Libi’s] interrogation after his rendition to [Egypt] and both SIS [MI6] and MI5 received reports from subsequent interrogations’.[63]

It is worth noting that several victims of the CIA torture programme continue to be held in the US Department of Defense detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. Their lawyers and numerous UN Special Rapporteurs consider their detention to be arbitrary, and have concluded that they continue to suffer psychological torture through their ongoing incarceration. They are also suffering long term psychological and physical trauma as a result of the torture they suffered at the hands of the CIA, and are denied access to the medical and therapeutic remedies needed to address this serious physical and psychological injury. The US government is seeking the death penalty against some of them in the highly secretive Military Commissions trials, which have been roundly condemned for denying the prisoners fundamental rights to a fair trial – including by permitting evidence obtained through torture, and denying the prisoners and their lawyers access to the evidence against them. Legal experts have repeatedly concluded that the US intends to ensure that several prisoners are never released, to prevent further details of the extent of the CIA’s torture programme from ever coming to light.

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[1] Ruth Blakeley and Sam Raphael, British Torture in the ‘War on Terror’, European Journal of International Relations, vol. 23, no. 2, Jun 2016, pp. 243-266; Ruth Blakeley and Sam Raphael, Accountability, Denial and the Future-Proofing of British Torture, International Affairs, vol. 96, no. 3, May 2020, pp. 691-709.

[2] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, p. 5.

[3] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, p. 4.

[4] Detainee Inquiry (Sir Peter Gibson), The Report of the Detainee Inquiry, final report, 19 Dec 2013, p. 24.

[5] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, p. 35.

[6] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, p. 36.

[7] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, pp. 52–4.

[8] Ian Cobain and Luke Harding, UK ‘Breaking Law’ Over CIA Secret Flights, The Guardian, 5 Dec 2005.

[9] Detainee Inquiry (Sir Peter Gibson), The Report of the Detainee Inquiry, final report, 19 Dec 2013, pp. 34–6. Although full details of which operations were authorised by Straw are still classified, he has admitted to authorising involvement in Belhadj’s rendition. See: Rajeev Syal and Ian Cobain, Jack Straw Faces Call to Give Evidence Over Role in Libyan Rendition, The Guardian, 11 May 2018.

[10] Foreign Affairs Committee, Minutes of Evidence: Examination of Witnesses, Questions 20–39, 13 Dec 2005.

[11] Rendition: Blair in Quotes, BBC News, 19 Jan 2006.

[12] Intelligence and Security Committee, Rendition, parliamentary report, Jul 2007, pp. 51–2.

[13] Intelligence and Security Committee, Rendition, parliamentary report, Jul 2007, p. 64.

[14] Intelligence and Security Committee, Rendition, parliamentary report, Jul 2007, p. 13.

[15] Hansard (Commons), 28 June 2018, col. 41WS.

[16] Hansard (Commons), 2 July 2018, col. 28.

[17] Hansard (Commons), 15 July 2019, col. 591; HM Government, Government Response: Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, response to Intelligence and Security Committee report, Nov 2018, p. 7.

[18] Ruth Blakeley and Sam Raphael, British Torture in the ‘War on Terror’, European Journal of International Relations, vol. 23, no. 2, Jun 2016, pp. 243-266; Ruth Blakeley and Sam Raphael, Accountability, Denial and the Future-Proofing of British Torture, International Affairs, vol. 96, no. 3, May 2020, pp. 691-709.

[19] Detainee Inquiry (Sir Peter Gibson), The Report of the Detainee Inquiry, final report, 19 Dec 2013, p. 47.

[20] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, pp. 21–8.

[21] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, p. 34; Detainee Inquiry (Sir Peter Gibson), The Report of the Detainee Inquiry, final report, 19 Dec 2013, p. 28; Human Rights Watch, Cruel Britannia: British Complicity in the Torture and Ill-Treatment of Terror Suspects in Pakistan, 24 Nov 2009.

[22] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, p. 90.

[23] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, p. 34.

[24] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, p. 21.

[25] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, p. 34.

[26] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, pp. 26–7.

[27] Security Service, Telegram: Detention of Islamists at Gatwick Airport, [redacted] to [redacted], 1 Nov 2002; Security Service, Telegram: Travellers to Gambia, [redacted] to [redacted], 4 Nov 2002; Security Service, Telegram: Individuals Travelling to Gambia, [redacted] to [redacted], 8 Nov 2002; Security Service, Telegram: Individuals Detained in Gambia, [redacted] to [redacted], 11 Nov 2002.

[28] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, pp. 88–90, 99–101.

[29] Detainee Inquiry (Sir Peter Gibson), The Report of the Detainee Inquiry, final report, 19 Dec 2013, p. 36.

[30] Human Rights Watch, Delivered Into Enemy Hands: US-Led Abuse and Rendition of Opponents to Gaddafi’s Libya, Sep 2012.

[31] Central Intelligence Agency, Memo: Rendition of Abu Munthir, [redacted] to Mukhabarat el-Jamahiriya (Libyan Intelligence), 23 Mar 2004.

[32] Secret Intelligence Service, Fax: Abdullah Sadeq, [redacted] to [redacted], undated [Mar 2004].

[33] Central Intelligence Agency, Memo: Clarification Regarding the Rendition of Abu Abdullah Al-Sadiq, [redacted] to Mukhabarat el-Jamahiriya (Libyan Intelligence), 4 Mar 2004; Central Intelligence Agency, Memo: Planning for the Capture and Rendition of Abdullah Al-Sadiq, [redacted] to Mukhabarat el-Jamahiriya (Libyan Intelligence), 6 Mar 2004; Central Intelligence Agency, Memo: Schedule for the Rendition of Abdullah Al-Sadiq, [redacted] to Mukhabarat el-Jamahiriya (Libyan Intelligence), 6 Mar 2004; Central Intelligence Agency, Memo: Urgent Request Regarding the Extradition of Abdullah Al-Sadiq From Malaysia, [redacted] to Mukhabarat el-Jamahiriya (Libyan Intelligence), 4 Mar 2004.

[34] Secret Intelligence Service, Telegram: Tony Blair’s Libya Trip and Belhadj’s Rendition, Mark Allen (Head of Counter-Terrorism) to Moussa Koussa (Department of International Relations and Collaboration), 18 Mar 2004.

[35] Rajeev Syal and Ian Cobain, Jack Straw Faces Call to Give Evidence Over Role in Libyan Rendition, The Guardian, 11 May 2018.

[36] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, p. 88.

[37] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, p. 89.

[38] Ian Cobain, UK Provided More Support for CIA Rendition Flights Than Thought — Study, The Guardian, 22 May 2013.

[39] Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Letter: Rendition Flights and Diego Garcia, David Miliband (Secretary of State) to Clive Stafford Smith (Reprieve), document with attachment, 21 Feb 2008.

[40] Sam Raphael, Crofton Black, Ruth Blakeley and Steve Kostas, Tracking Rendition Aircraft as a Way to Understand CIA Secret Detention and Torture in Europe, The International Journal of Human Rights, vol. 20, no. 1, Jun 2015, pp. 78–103; US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Committee Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program: Executive Summary, 9 Dec 2014.

[41] Intelligence and Security Committee, Rendition, parliamentary report, Jul 2007, pp. 57–62.

[42] MSPs Call for Action Over Rendition Flights Investigation, BBC News, 22 Feb 2020.

[43] Reprieve, Human Cargo: Binyam Mohamed and the Rendition Frequent Flyer Programme, 10 Jun 2008, p. 6.

[44] Court of Appeal (Civil Division), Judgment: Binyam Mohamed v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, 10 Feb 2010, paras 32, x.

[45] Detainee Inquiry (Sir Peter Gibson), The Report of the Detainee Inquiry, final report, 19 Dec 2013, p. 23.

[46] Detainee Inquiry (Sir Peter Gibson), The Report of the Detainee Inquiry, final report, 19 Dec 2013, p. 28.

[47] Human Rights Watch, Cruel Britannia: British Complicity in the Torture and Ill-Treatment of Terror Suspects in Pakistan, 24 Nov 2009, p. 2.

[48] Human Rights Watch, Cruel Britannia: British Complicity in the Torture and Ill-Treatment of Terror Suspects in Pakistan, 24 Nov 2009, pp. 21-22.

[49] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, pp. 36–7.

[50] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, p. 54.

[51] US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Committee Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program: Executive Summary, 9 Dec 2014, pp. 83–93, 300.

[52] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, p. 42. This case is currently under investigation by the Metropolitan Police for possible criminal conduct on behalf of British intelligence officials. See Owen Bowcott, Police Investigating Role of UK Officers in Torture of Al-Qaida Suspect, The Guardian, 31 Mar 2019.

[53] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, p. 3.

[54] Court of Appeal (Civil Division), Judgment: Binyam Mohamed v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, 10 Feb 2010, para. 29.

[55] Court of Appeal (Civil Division), Judgment: Binyam Mohamed v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, 10 Feb 2010, para. 35A.

[56] Court of Appeal (Civil Division), Judgment: Binyam Mohamed v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, 10 Feb 2010, para. 30.

[57] Reprieve, Human Cargo: Binyam Mohamed and the Rendition Frequent Flyer Programme, 10 Jun 2008, p. 12.

[58] Secret Intelligence Service, Telegram: Tony Blair’s Libya Trip and Belhadj’s Rendition, Mark Allen (Head of Counter-Terrorism) to Moussa Koussa (Department of International Relations and Collaboration), 18 Mar 2004.

[59] Kim Sengupta, Libyan Rebel Leader Says MI6 Knew He Was Tortured, The Independent, 6 Sep 2011.

[60] Abul Taher and David Rose, MI6 Agents Pushed 49-Point List of Questions to Tripoli Torture Victim Interrogators ‘Under Torture Chamber Door’, Mail on Sunday, 28 Apr 2012.

[61] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, p. 32.

[62] Ian Cobain and Clara Usiskin, Exclusive: UK Spy Agencies Knew Source of False Iraq War Intelligence Was Tortured, Middle East Eye, 6 Nov 2018.

[63] Intelligence and Security Committee, Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition, 2001-10, parliamentary report, 28 Jun 2018, p. 32.