Claims of secret CIA jail for terror suspects on British island to be investigated

[LeighAnn]

Source: Guardian

Allegations that the CIA held al-Qaida suspects for interrogation at a secret prison on sovereign British territory are to be investigated by MPs, the Guardian has learned. The all-party foreign affairs committee is to examine long-standing suspicions that the agency has operated one of its so-called "black site" prisons on Diego Garcia, the British overseas territory in the Indian Ocean that is home to a large US military base.

Lawyers from Reprieve, a legal charity that represents a number of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, including several former British residents, are calling on the committee to question US and British officials about the allegations. According to the organisation's submission to the committee, the UK government is "potentially systematically complicit in the most serious crimes against humanity of disappearance, torture and prolonged incommunicado detention".

Clive Stafford Smith, the charity's legal director, said he was "absolutely and categorically certain" that prisoners have been held on the island. "If the foreign affairs committee approaches this thoroughly, they will get to the bottom of it," he said.
Andrew Tyrie, Tory MP for Chichester and a campaigner against the CIA's use of detention without trial, has also urged the committee to investigate. He said: "Time and time again the UK government has relied on US assurances on this issue, refusing to examine the truth of these allegations for themselves. It is high time our government took its head out of the sand and looked into these allegations."

Edited to fix title

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2194651,00.html

[Solly Mack]

1. k/r

[KoKo]

2. Good! More Documentation for Blair/Bush War Crimes....

They will be held accountable one day...maybe long after we are gone...but they will be held accountable. Bush and his Poodle. :-(

[Supersedeas]

5. oh, the things that we will discover when this filth is out of the WH

[Felinity]

3. The Brits are the landlord here

Do you think they retained any access rights?

Any hope they'll actually look into this before the CIA blows the whole damn island up?

[LeighAnn]

4. Here's some background info

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article3067211.ece

Diego Garcia, a tropical island located in the middle of the Indian Ocean, has long since given up its once-cherished status as a paradise destination. The last remaining coconut plantations were uprooted in the 1970s to make way for a US military base which is now home to nearly 2,000 American personnel.

At the height of the Cold War, the island's key role was to provide a home for US Air Force bombers and Awacs surveillance planes, as well as serve as a satellite-tracking station and communications facility. But independent military experts believe that, since 9/11, this horseshoe-shaped atoll has become the sinister destination for terror suspects who have undergone "extraordinary rendition".

A report by the Council of Europe published earlier this year found evidence that Diego Garcia was being used by the CIA as a secret prison and holding centre for people whom the Americans wished to interrogate and torture outside international law.

Both this report and human rights groups allege that Britain has played a complicit role in the use of the island as a staging post for international torture flights. Diego Garcia is a British overseas territory, part of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), leased to our American allies and still home to around 50 UK military personnel.

<end excerpt> There's more at the article

[KoKo]

6. Interesting article that more DU'ers would be interested in....

:kick: