MPs and human rights groups yesterday demanded an independent inquiry into the use of UK territory by CIA "torture flights" as fresh questions emerged over the government's handling of the issue. Ministers are coming under growing pressure as officials made it clear they still could not be certain of the extent to which US aircraft made use of British facilities when taking alleged terrorists to prisons where they were likely to be subjected to inhumane treatment.| No one's documented any inhumane treatment of course, but such documentation isn't necessary: it's enough to 'feel' that someone was mistreated. |
British officials said yesterday they were "working behind the scenes" in an attempt to get more information from the Americans. The Guardian has learned that Lord Malloch Brown, the Foreign Office minister, has spoken to Manfred Novak, the UN's special investigator on torture, about the alleged use of Diego Garcia as a detention centre to hold US suspects. Novak said he had credible evidence from sources he could not reveal that detainees were held on the island between 2002 and 2003. British officials say they have no evidence of this.
| If he's not willing to reveal his evidence then he can go scratch. We're not going to play 'twenty questions' with him. |
| That's what CIA is supposed to do with records ... |
In a letter to Miliband, Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve's legal director, said: "It is certainly not going to rebuild public confidence if we say that two people were illegally taken through British territory but then refuse to reveal the fates of these men."
His call for an independent inquiry was echoed by Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, and Andrew Tyrie, Tory chairman of the parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition, pressed Miliband to seek more information from the US, including reports that detainees were held on the island or on US ships anchored nearby.