New British guidelines on handling terrorism suspects held overseas have been delayed over a dispute about how to deal with potentially life-saving information from detainees who may be at risk of torture by allies.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown promised a year ago that new rules would be drawn up, and the government was expected to make them public for the first time on Thursday. But officials have acknowledged the document won’t appear before the country’s national election, due within three months.
Brown ordered the rules to be rewritten following accusations that British officials were complicit in the torture of terror suspects held overseas by other nations, including the United States. Police are investigating two cases related to the actions of intelligence officers from the MI5 and MI6 spy agencies.
Two government officials, who demanded anonymity to discuss the issue, said Britain’s government and Parliament’s intelligence oversight committee disagree over a section of the new rules dealing with how ministers should handle material gleaned from suspects who may be at risk of mistreatment.
“The problem is that there is a difference of opinion about something we have written in the report,” said Michael Mates, a Conservative lawmaker and a member of Parliament’s Intelligence and Security oversight committee.
A report by the committee on detainee handling will be published alongside the new guidelines. Opposition lawmakers and human rights groups have accused the government of purposely delaying publication of controversial material until after the election, expected in May.
Conservative Party legislator William Hague said Brown is “suspected in some quarters of wishing to suppress difficult issues” and accused the government of “mounting incompetence” over national security issues.
In a new report on human rights, Britain’s Foreign Office hinted at the likely tone of the new rules. It acknowledged the U.K. can’t “afford the luxury of only dealing with those” who share Britain’s standards or laws.
The Government has been absolutely clear that the UK stands firmly against torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. When detainees are in our custody we can be sure how they are treated and that measures are put in place to meet our obligations and standards. We cannot always have that same level of assurance when they are held overseas by foreign governments.
However, we cannot get all the intelligence we need from our own sources, because the terrorist groups we face are scattered around the world, and our resources are finite. So we must work with intelligence and security agencies overseas. Some of them share our standards and laws while others do not. But we cannot afford the luxury of only dealing with those that do. The intelligence we get from others saves British lives.
Whether sharing information, which might lead to the detention of people who could pose a threat to our national security; passing questions to be put to detainees; or participating in interviews of them, we do all we can to minimise, and where possible avoid, the risk that the people in question are mistreated by those holding them. However, there are times when we cannot reduce the risk to zero.
Once published, our consolidated guidance to Agency staff and service personnel will make clear the careful and considered way we approach these situations. Ultimately it is for Ministers to balance the risk of mistreatment against the national security needs and make a judgement. Ministers take this responsibility very seriously. If the risk of mistreatment is too high then we will not go ahead with an operation. This is not just a theoretical possibility – operations have been stopped because the risk of mistreatment was judged to be too high. But this is never an easy judgement and we would be failing in our twin duties to defend the country and to uphold human rights if we pretended that there was never a tension between the two.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband told the House of Commons that drafting the new rules had been more complex than first imagined. “The most important thing is to get this guidance right,” he told lawmakers.
Lawmaker Kim Howells, chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, said it was now “a matter for the prime minister” to decide when the rules are finalized and made public. Howells on Thursday issued an annual report by his oversight committee, warning that Britain’s intelligence agencies are preparing for cuts to their budgets for the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
In the human rights report the FCO further stressed one particular aspect of the Court of Appeal ruling in the Binyam Mohamed case, namely that it “upheld the principle that intelligence belonging to another state should not be released without its consent”.
On the case of Shaker Aamer it says:
Legal counsel for Shaker Aamer, the last remaining former UK resident held in Guantanamo Bay, also brought proceedings against the Foreign Secretary seeking disclosure of information that he believed may support his claim that he was tortured while in US custody. The UK searched for potentially relevant material of this nature, and this was also disclosed to the US authorities, who in turn disclosed it to Mr Aamer’s US-based security-cleared counsel representing him in proceedings before the US Guantanamo Review Task Force. We were informed in January 2010 that Mr Aamer had decided not to seek further disclosure, as the disclosure in the US had enabled his legal representatives to make the necessary representations on his behalf to the Task Force which was reviewing his case. The Government has continued to make clear to the US authorities that our request for Mr Aamer’s release and return to the UK stands. We have also sought welfare updates on him.
It also defended the continued use of diplomatic assurances.
Our policy continued to attract criticism in 2009 from some parts of the human rights community. We believe, however, that the assurances we have received in individual cases are robust and can be relied upon,not least because of the strong bilateral relationships enjoyed with the governments with which we have Deportation with Assurances (DWA) arrangements.
We always ensure that our work is compatible with our international human rights obligations, in particular the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT). We will not seek to deport an individual where there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk to that person of torture or other inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, or that the death penalty will apply.
We have negotiated memoranda of understanding with Jordan, Libya, Lebanon and Ethiopia and an exchange of letters has taken place with the Algerian government. We will continue to negotiate new memoranda of understanding in 2010.
Moreover, we consider that our work on DWA has a positive effect on the human rights situation in the countries concerned, as it enables us to engage with these governments on human rights issues. In the countries with which we have memoranda of understanding, local NGOs have been appointed as monitoring bodies to follow up on the safety of those deported on their return.
The report continued with describing the capacity-building efforts with international parterns, describing for instance several projects that “have trained police forces to use modern evidencegathering techniques, which meet proper judicial standards. We have run such programmes in Saudi Arabia (see page 144), Pakistan and Libya. This helps to lower police reliance on obtaining confessions to convict suspects.”
Also:
The FCO has supported over 260 projects in the countries of the Muslim majority world on good governance; legal and prison reform; anticorruption; youth empowerment and employability; civil society development; education reform; and media reform and more open parliamentary reporting.
In allocating funds to Prevent projects, human rights are considered at both the application and implementation phases, to ensure that the projects will not have a negative impact on human rights, and that, where appropriate, human rights goals are included in the projects themselves.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband, speaking at an event in London to launch the report, said Britain’s commitment to uphold human rights had been under intense scrutiny.
“The question is not whether we should respect human rights in the process … rather the question is how human rights can be factored in to our approach,” he said.