MI5 and MI6 admit fears over 15 new torture cases
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Independent Minds
Human rights campaigners pressed for an independent judicial inquiry yesterday after the British security services revealed there might be up to 15 more cases in which they could be complicit in the torture of terrorism suspects.
MI5 and MI6 carried out a review of files after the launch of an unprecedented police investigation into claims by the former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed that British intelligence services knew he was being tortured.
The review has uncovered 15 cases in which the intelligence services carried out interrogations of suspects in US custody. Most of the cases relate to a period between 2002 and 2004 at American facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
Shami Chakrabarti, of the human rights organisation Liberty, said that the Government could no longer avoid an independent judicial inquiry headed by a senior judge with powers to call ministers at the highest level.
"This development is enormously significant and full credit to the security services for attempting to come clean about this," she said. "An inquiry must now be launched, asking who knew what and what sanctions were given to the security services for their actions."
If an inquiry led to criminal charges, these could include aiding and abetting torture, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
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Comments
"I do not care about people who are out to cause harm to our society and who then get caught and tortured"
So it seems you support torture of the guilty.
"I would rather that they tortured 100 people wrongly than 10 got killed by a terrorist lets get things in perspective"
And it seems you also support torture of the innocent. Perhaps we should all be tortured, just to be on the safe side. But I wonder how many of us would admit to crimes we had not even committed.
While you colonise and cause mayhem abroad, you expect to be sitting in having a nice cool beer at home!
1. It is wrong.
2. Torture does not work.
Morals and values are black and white, you cannot claim to have them and then want to pick and mix as it suits. Torture is wrong, and the state cannot compromise on the topic. The guilt or innocence of the victim is irrelevant.
Countless studies and evidence from those who have been involved in torture show that it does not work, because the victim will say what they think you want to hear to make you stop. This does not lead to effective intelligence.
Torture harms the UK because it goes against British values and so compromises the organs of the state that practise it and because it is a distraction from genuine counter-intelligence work that provides faulty leads.
1/It is better to unfortunately make the odd mistake with one sheep than lose the entire flock.
2/ All RIGHT-THINKING people will agree. 3/ Those who disagree are bolshi enemies of our consensual society. 4/ Er... that's it.
It is better to give 10 guilty people their freedom than to catch & punish 1 innocent person.
I know that torture doesn't work (so there is no point in having it anyway) in that innocent people then admit to things they didn't do.
I am also sure that I would rather not have a death penalty, in case one innocent person was hanged "by mistake".
Some people seem to have a very cavalier attitude. Who cares as it's "them" who get tortured, who get hanged, or who get 27 years in prison.......But as anyone watching the news knows it's not just "them" & it might well be me, or you!
He's set free, comes of course back to the land of milk and honey to sponge again and no doubt hoping(and probably in line for) a wacking big chunk of compensation and allowed to live here where he and his British hating friends can plot, kill and maim.No to mention all the money the investigation will cost the country (good for his lawyers though as the pontificate on his innocence)
Well I am sick to death of these people and as the Australian Prime minister said if they don't like it here, if they don't like our rules, if they don't like our religion. LEAVE THE COUNTRY Well said Mr Rudd. I wish you were our prime minister instead of the spineless one we have now.