Terrorist Torture News: UK Seeking to Cover Role in 'Extraordinary Rendition' of Suspects?
The British Government has been accused of trying to cover up its role in the "extraordinary rendition" of terror suspects who were tortured by the United States after the 9/11 attacks. The British legal rights group Reprieve accused the British Government of trying to censor embarrassing information from a report that will be release in a few days by the CIA's interrogation program.
The report will confirm the United States tortured terrorist suspects after 9/11. President Obama said on Friday, "We tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values."
Extraordinary rendition or irregular rendition is the apprehension and extrajudicial transfer of a person from one country to another for the sake of employing the use of torture for interrogation. The program was initiated by former President Bill Clinton and expanded under the Bush and Obama administrations.
The Guardian reported that Former Foreign Secretary William Hague sent a letter to Reprieve confirming that the British Government held discussions with the United States Government about what will the report tends to reveal. According to Al-Jazeera, the report acknowledges the British territory of Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean, was used for extraordinary rendition.
According to PressTV, human rights groups are saying that the island was leased to the United States for the purpose of holding terrorist suspects in a position where they don't have access to lawyers.
In the letter Hague wrote, "We have made representations to seek assurances that ordinary procedures for clearance of U.K. material will be followed in the event that U.K. material provide[d] to the Senate committee were to be disclosed."
Cori Crider, a director at Reprieve, is accusing the British Government of trying to redact embarrassing information from the report.
"This shows that the U.K. government is attempting to censor the U.S. Senate's torture report. In plain English, it is a request to the U.S. to keep Britain's role in rendition out of the public domain," Crider said.
Earlier this month, the Daily Mail reported that the secret files detailing the CIA rendition flights on the island had been accidentally destroyed by water damage. In 2008 former Foreign Secretary David Miliband had admitted that Diego Garcia had been used twice in 2002 for the refueling of rendition flights months after the 9/11 attacks.
After the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi in 2011, reports surfaced suggesting the U.S. intended to use the island as a stopover during the 2004 rendition of Abdel Hakim Belhadj and his pregnant wife.
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