Parliamentary body urges inquiry into claimed British torture role

An independent inquiry is needed into claims UK security services were complicit in the torture of terrorism suspects, say MPs and peers.
The Joint Human Rights Committee said it was unable to establish whether British officers were involved in mistreatment of suspects.
It also criticised ministers and the head of MI5 for refusing to testify at parliamentary hearings on the claims.
Minister Ivan Lewis said torture was "unacceptable and abhorrent".
"We neither engage in, collude with or condone torture," the foreign affairs minister told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
Asked whether Britain was complicit in torture, he said: "I don't believe that that's the case.
"We stand very firmly in saying that torture is not acceptable. We make it clear to those countries that we work with.
It is unacceptable both for Ministers to refuse to answer policy questions about the Security Services, and for the Director General of MI5 to answer questions from the press but not from a Parliamentary committee
Andrew Dismore, committee chairman
"What we can't do is simply turn away from our responsibilities to the security of the British people."
In a highly critical report, the joint parliamentary committee said there was now a "disturbing number of credible allegations" of British complicity in torture.
These allegations include the rendition and alleged abuse of British resident Binyam Mohammed from Pakistan to Morocco, prior to being taken to Guantanamo Bay.
The Metropolitan Police are investigating the role of one MI5 officer in Mr Mohamed's case.
Last week the High Court revealed that the same officer visited Morocco three times during the period that Mr Mohamed says he was being secretly tortured there.
Binyam Mohamed: Claims to have been tortured in Morocco by interrogators who asked him questions about his life which he says could only have come from British authorities
Salauddin Amin: Claims Britain was complicit in alleged torture suffered following his arrest in Pakistan
Rangzieb Ahmed: Claims his fingernails were pulled by a Pakistani torturer and MI5 supplied Pakistani interrogators with questions
The committee also looked at other cases where British men, two of whom have been convicted of terror offences, say they were visited by British intelligence officers while they were detained and allegedly mistreated by Pakistani authorities.
But in all the cases, the parliamentary committee said it could not get to the facts because too many questions were not being properly answered.
It said that both the foreign secretary and home secretary, as well as the director general of MI5, had declined to give evidence on what was known about torture or mistreatment.
The ministers appeared "determined to avoid parliamentary scrutiny", said the report, and had batted away important questions with standardised answers.
Committee chairman Andrew Dismore MP said: "The allegations we have heard about UK complicity in torture are extremely serious.
"It is unacceptable both for ministers to refuse to answer policy questions about the security services, and for the director general of MI5 to answer questions from the press but not from a Parliamentary committee."

A British Deserter Describes The Afghan War as “unlawful”!

A soldier facing court martial over his refusal to serve in Afghanistan is expected to claim in his defence that the war is unlawful.
Lance Corporal Joe Glenton, who appeared in court for a preliminary hearing into his case yesterday, maintains that British soldiers are dying in the interest of American foreign policy and should be brought home.



L/Cpl Glenton, 27, of the Royal Logistic Corps, did not enter a formal plea during proceedings in Wiltshire yesterday, where he was charged with desertion. He had been active in a campaign organised by the Stop the War Coalition and delivered a protest letter to Downing Street. The soldier’s counsel, Hugh O’Donoghue, indicated that his client would deny the charge and may call an expert witness to give evidence on the lawfulness of the war.
Prosecutor Gemma Sayer said she would be calling witnesses who were currently serving in Afghanistan and Kuwait and that there may be additional charge connected to the alleged desertion. L/Cpl Glenton is due to return to duties with his regiment at his base in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, where he will be interviewed by the Royal Military police. Having joined the Army in 2004, L/Cpl Glenton, from York, went absent without leave in 2007 before handing himself in after two years and six days. Judge Advocate Alastair McGrigor adjourned the case to 4 September.
Before his court appearance L/Cpl Glenton said: “I always expected to divide opinion and I understood it would happen. I welcome the debate and appreciate some people don’t agree with me. But at the end of the day, what I’m doing is what I feel I have to do and the positive thing is that the whole Afghanistan issue is being discussed – there are places in the world where people don’t get the chance to do this.”
RAF officer Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith was sentenced to eight months in prison in 2007 and fined £20,000 for refusing to serve in Iraq. A handful of other British service personnel were allowed to leave the service after refusing to serve in Iraq.
From The Independent

Pakistan bigger threat for uk then helmand-report

A House of Commons report published on Sunday concluded that the UK faced more threat from inside Pakistan than from Afghanistan’s Helmand province where, the report asserted, British soldiers were sent on ‘an ill-defined mission undermined by unrealistic planning and lack of manpower’.
The Labour-chaired Commons foreign affairs select committee report raises the alarming spectre of Al Qaeda, ‘which has shifted its focus into Pakistan’.
Professor Shaun Gregory, an expert on Pakistan at Bradford University, told the committee that a direct attack on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons infrastructure could not be ruled out.
According to the Observer, MPs concluded that there was now a ‘strong argument to be made’ that the Afghan insurgency was no longer an immediate threat to Britain, adding: ‘That threat in the form of Al Qaeda and international terrorism can be said more properly to emanate from Pakistan’.
The report concluded that, while the military campaign in Helmand might be gaining traction, Afghan support for the troops had been damaged by civilian casualties and ‘cultural insensitivity’, and there was no evidence the war on drugs had reduced poppy cultivation.
A weak, corrupt police force was driving Afghans back to the Taliban to seek justice, it argued, while cultural assumptions about women were barely changed.
The Observer said Whitehall was braced for the publication this month of a review of the Afghanistan campaign by General Stanley McChrystal, commander of US forces there, which was expected to trigger a fresh debate over troop numbers. Some MPs believed parliament might even be recalled from recess to debate Afghanistan.
The Foreign Office admitted on Saturday night that the insurgent threat in Helmand was ‘greater than anticipated’, but said the aim of denying Al Qaeda a safe haven remained unchanged.
The committee suggested that Whitehall was distracted by Iraq during its planning, made wrong assumptions about Afghan expectations and gave unclear direction to the armed forces. It noted that ‘most analysts believe the initial UK strategy failed primarily because of a lack of manpower and a poor understanding of the local situation’.
Meanwhile, a memo from Major Brian Dupree leaked to the newspaper showed that Britain’s war effort in Afghanistan was being hindered by a number of frontline troops ‘too fat to fight’.
The Ministry of Defence confirmed that it had directed military chiefs to ensure units were following army fitness policy after concerns were raised over a ‘worrying trend of obesity’.

DIALOGUE WITH MODERATE TALIBAN POSSIBLE- NATO CHIEF

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the new head of Nato, said in an interview published Saturday he would support dialogue with 'moderate groups on the outer reaches of the Taliban. There is certainly a hard core that is impossible to reach any deals with. They have only respect for military powers,' he told the Danish newspaper Politiken.
But there are groups that you can talk with to try and bring about some kind of reconciliation with the Afghan community,' he said.





Rasmussen's comments echoed British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander who last week struck a more conciliatory tone on engaging with Taliban willing to renounce violence
I certainly don't know why one should strike any agreements with those who are killing our soldiers. We are talking about other groups located on the outer fringes of the Taliban,' said the new Nato secretary general, who takes up his new role on Monday.
'We obviously want to co-operate with those who want to contribute to a safer situation in Afghanistan and to create a framework for reconstruction and economic and social development,' he added.
His comments followed one of the deadliest months for foreign forces since they arrived in late 2001 to remove the Taliban regime and root out Al-Qaeda operatives.
Insurgent attacks have stepped up across Afghanistan in recent years, with the violence peaking just weeks ahead of the August elections, a milestone on the country's rocky road to democracy.
There are around 90,000 international troops under the Nato military alliance and US-led coalition command in Afghanistan, fighting alongside Afghan forces against the Taliban and other radical groups.
Last year, then Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell said Britain would support efforts to reach out to Taliban elements prepared to turn their backs on violence and embrace politics.
At end of 2007, two British diplomats were expelled from Afghanistan, accused of contacting the Taliban.