Post by Moses on Jan 19, 2006 23:57:23 GMT -5
GUILTY:
January 19, 2006
Leaked Memo Points to British Aid in U.S. Rendition Flights
By ALAN COWELL
LONDON, Jan. 19 - The British government may have permitted the use of its airspace and airports for American rendition flights more frequently than it initially acknowledged, according to a leaked document published today in a British weekly magazine.
The memo - said to have been written around last Dec. 7 by a Foreign Office official, Irfan Siddiq, to Grace Cassy, an official in the office of Prime Minister Tony Blair - seemed likely to deepen concerns across Europe about the extent of clandestine flights operated by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Britain denies authorizing the use of its airspace or airports in recent years for flights said by civil rights groups to be used to transport prisoners to countries where they might face torture or what Britain calls "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment.
Last Dec. 12, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, told lawmakers in the House of Commons that officials had discovered evidence of two instances in which Britain had authorized American rendition flights. Both had been before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he said.
Today a government spokesman said that Mr. Straw's statement on Dec. 12 had been "comprehensive."
"Anything we do in relation to rendition is in compliance with our international obligations," the spokesman said, without denying the authenticity of the memo. "We fulfill our legal obligations. This is a classic case where people have got over-excited by getting a leaked memo, rather than actually reading the content of it." The memo, published in the New Statesman and in The Guardian newspaper, was quoted as saying: "We should try to avoid getting drawn on detail, at least until we have been able to complete the substantial research required to establish what has happened even since 1997, and to try to move the debate on. "The papers we have unearthed so far suggest there could be more such cases," it read, adding: "The Home Office, who lead, are urgently examining their files, as are we. But we now cannot say that we have received no such requests for the use of U.K. territory or air space for extraordinary rendition."
The document was apparently intended as advice to the prime minister's office on how to handle lawmakers' inquiries about the flights.
In the memo, Mr. Siddiq urged the government to refer questioners to "the strong antiterrorist rationale for close cooperation with the U.S., within our legal obligations."
The document said that both rendition - defined as the extrajudicial transfer of prisoners to their home country or to United States jurisdiction - and so-called extraordinary rendition, meaning transfer to a third country, may be illegal.
"In the most common use of the term - i.e., involving real risk of torture - it could never be legal because this is clearly prohibited by the U.N. Convention Against Torture," the document said.
"It does remain true that we are not aware of the use of U.K. territory or airspace for the purposes of extraordinary rendition," it continued. "But we think we should now try to move the debate on from the specifics of rendition - extraordinary or otherwise - and focus people instead" on American assurances "that U.S. activities are consistent with their domestic and international obligations and never include the use of torture."
Last December, responding to a report that the C.I.A. maintained a network of secret prisons across Eastern Europe, Condoleezza Rice, the United States secretary of state, said the United States does not transport people overseas for torture.
Publication of the British document today inspired calls for Foreign Secretary Straw to return to Parliament to explain what Nick Clegg, a Liberal Democrat opposition spokesman, called "months of government obfuscation and inconsistency on extraordinary rendition."
The government, however, ruled out a full parliamentary debate.
A spokesman at the Foreign Office, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said: "The Foreign Secretary has made clear we have not approved and will not approve a policy of facilitating the transfer of individuals through the U.K. to places where there are substantial grounds to believe they would face a real risk of torture."
But Tony Lloyd, a former Foreign Office minister from Mr. Blair's Labor Party, said Britain should avoid future cooperation with the United States on renditions. "We need to say to the Americans that it would be absolutely intolerable now for them to use British territory," he told BBC radio.
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
January 19, 2006
Leaked Memo Points to British Aid in U.S. Rendition Flights
By ALAN COWELL
LONDON, Jan. 19 - The British government may have permitted the use of its airspace and airports for American rendition flights more frequently than it initially acknowledged, according to a leaked document published today in a British weekly magazine.
The memo - said to have been written around last Dec. 7 by a Foreign Office official, Irfan Siddiq, to Grace Cassy, an official in the office of Prime Minister Tony Blair - seemed likely to deepen concerns across Europe about the extent of clandestine flights operated by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Britain denies authorizing the use of its airspace or airports in recent years for flights said by civil rights groups to be used to transport prisoners to countries where they might face torture or what Britain calls "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment.
Last Dec. 12, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, told lawmakers in the House of Commons that officials had discovered evidence of two instances in which Britain had authorized American rendition flights. Both had been before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he said.
Today a government spokesman said that Mr. Straw's statement on Dec. 12 had been "comprehensive."
"Anything we do in relation to rendition is in compliance with our international obligations," the spokesman said, without denying the authenticity of the memo. "We fulfill our legal obligations. This is a classic case where people have got over-excited by getting a leaked memo, rather than actually reading the content of it." The memo, published in the New Statesman and in The Guardian newspaper, was quoted as saying: "We should try to avoid getting drawn on detail, at least until we have been able to complete the substantial research required to establish what has happened even since 1997, and to try to move the debate on. "The papers we have unearthed so far suggest there could be more such cases," it read, adding: "The Home Office, who lead, are urgently examining their files, as are we. But we now cannot say that we have received no such requests for the use of U.K. territory or air space for extraordinary rendition."
The document was apparently intended as advice to the prime minister's office on how to handle lawmakers' inquiries about the flights.
In the memo, Mr. Siddiq urged the government to refer questioners to "the strong antiterrorist rationale for close cooperation with the U.S., within our legal obligations."
The document said that both rendition - defined as the extrajudicial transfer of prisoners to their home country or to United States jurisdiction - and so-called extraordinary rendition, meaning transfer to a third country, may be illegal.
"In the most common use of the term - i.e., involving real risk of torture - it could never be legal because this is clearly prohibited by the U.N. Convention Against Torture," the document said.
"It does remain true that we are not aware of the use of U.K. territory or airspace for the purposes of extraordinary rendition," it continued. "But we think we should now try to move the debate on from the specifics of rendition - extraordinary or otherwise - and focus people instead" on American assurances "that U.S. activities are consistent with their domestic and international obligations and never include the use of torture."
Last December, responding to a report that the C.I.A. maintained a network of secret prisons across Eastern Europe, Condoleezza Rice, the United States secretary of state, said the United States does not transport people overseas for torture.
Publication of the British document today inspired calls for Foreign Secretary Straw to return to Parliament to explain what Nick Clegg, a Liberal Democrat opposition spokesman, called "months of government obfuscation and inconsistency on extraordinary rendition."
The government, however, ruled out a full parliamentary debate.
A spokesman at the Foreign Office, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said: "The Foreign Secretary has made clear we have not approved and will not approve a policy of facilitating the transfer of individuals through the U.K. to places where there are substantial grounds to believe they would face a real risk of torture."
But Tony Lloyd, a former Foreign Office minister from Mr. Blair's Labor Party, said Britain should avoid future cooperation with the United States on renditions. "We need to say to the Americans that it would be absolutely intolerable now for them to use British territory," he told BBC radio.
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company