SECRETS OF CIA’S SCOTTISH TORTURE FLIGHTS

Police probe at ‘advanced stage’ as law chief prepares to meet FBI

SCOTLAND’S top law officer yesterday ordered police to step up their probe into claims the nation’s airports were used as stopping-off points for American ‘torture flights’. Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland has instructed Police Scotland to examine this week’s US Senate report on CIA interrogation as part of an investigation into so- called rendition flights. The Mail understands that Mr Mulholland is to fly to the US soon to meet FBI officials and the rendition issue is likely to be on the agenda. Detectives have already

THE Blair Government was last night accused of operating a ‘secret policy of complicity in torture’ after 9/11 as demands grew for the UK to hold a full judicial inquiry. Amid the f allout f rom the US Senate’s explosive report into the barbaric techniques used by the CIA, ex- shadow home secretary David Davis said the UK had ‘turned a blind eye’ to what America was doing.

He said this included ‘allowing people initially under our control to be taken and subjected to torture’.

Controversy raged on both sides of the Atlantic as politicians absorbed the enormity of the report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which said the use of torture by the CIA was far worse than feared and a ‘stain on the conscience’ of the US.

Some 119 detainees were subjected to beatings, waterboarding, rectal feeding, being hung on chains and being made to wear nappies at a network of secret jails. One detainee, chained half-naked to a floor, died of hypothermia.

The British security services and Blair Government were being fed information by the CIA and worked closely with the Bush administration on the ‘war on terror’. Yet the 499-page Senate report did not contain a single reference to MI5, MI6 or Diego Garcia, a British overseas base known to have been used for rendition – prompting claims it had been redacted to spare the UK’s blushes.

Over two years, the British ambassador in Washington, Sir Peter Westmacott, met with members of the committee at least 11 times. His predecessor, Nigel Sheinwald, also held 11 meetings with members of the committee between 2009 and 2011.

Ex-Foreign Secretary William Hague also made ‘representations’ to the US.

Mr Davis said: ‘There is now little doubt that the Government operated a secret policy of complicity in torture in the years after 9/11. Our moral standing in the world is utterly compromised.’ The battle at Westminster is over the form an inquiry into the questions about British involvement in torture should take.

Originally, David Cameron promised a judge-led inquiry under Sir Peter Gibson. However, it was scrapped in December last year before it had been completed.

The Prime Minister said the task would instead be completed by Parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC) – prompting fears of a ‘whitewash’.

Yesterday, it emerged the ISC is to haul spy chiefs from MI5 and MI6 to give evidence. Campaign groups want Tony Blair and exNew Labour ministers to be grilled, too. Chairman Sir Malcolm Rifkind said: ‘There is an important issue that needs to be addressed. It’s not whether the British Government or British agencies were carrying out torture. It’s whether the intelligence agencies benefited from information or accepted information that they either knew or ought

‘The CIA did not

act alone’

to have known had been obtained through improper means.’

But human rights groups are adamant that a full judge-led inquiry must take place to get to the truth. They also want the full 6,000-page version of the Senate report to be released, not just the heavilyredacted summary.

Clare Algar, of Reprieve, said: ‘We already know the UK was up to its neck in the CIA’s rendition and torture programme. Yet the British Government continues to fight against real accountability in the UK courts.’ Amnesty International said it was clear ‘the CIA did not act alone’ and called for the full report to be published.

Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said: ‘I was never in any way complicit in the unlawful rendition or detention of individuals by the United States or any other state.’ Former Home Secretary David Blunkett declined to comment.

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg – who was paid compensation by the UK for alleged complicity in his ill-treatment – said there was a link between the torture report and the slaughter of British and US hostages in Syria.

He said terror group Islamic State was ‘born out of the dungeons of Abu Ghraib, where these torture methods were being implemented’.

Islamic extremists last night vowed to kill those responsible for the torture revealed in the CIA report. Nadim al-Muhajir wrote on Twitter: ‘You thought things cannot get any worse for America. But it did. These #torturereports are going to radicalise a whole generation.’

He added: ‘Slaughter the bastards who are defending the CIA and justifying their actions.’