¶ Turns Out Britain Was In On The Torture Of Its Own Residents As Well
Sunday, March 1, 2009, 11:21pm
Britain faces fresh accusations that it colluded in the rendering and alleged torture of a second UK resident now being held at Guantanamo Bay. The new claims bring further pressure on ministers to come clean about the scale of the Government's complicity in the rendition and torture of dozens of terror suspects captured by the Americans after 9/11.
His case comes after that of Binyam Mohamed, 30, released from the US naval base in Cuba last week, and whose claims of UK involvement in his torture are being investigated by the Attorney General. Now allegations made by Shaker Aamer, the final British resident held at Guantanamo Bay, raise concerns that both MI5 and MI6 were widely involved in the US rendition and torture programme operated in Afghanistan and Pakistan after 9/11.
Mr Aamer, 42, says he was rendered from the Pakistan border to Afghanistan where he claims he was tortured. He was passed by Pakistani groups to the Northern Alliance who sold him to the Americans. The CIA arranged for his detention in Afghanistan and final transfer to Guantanamo Bay.
He adds that two MI6 or MI5 officers, a man and a woman, interrogated him after he had been subjected to beatings and sleep deprivation by the Americans while being held at a prison in Kandahar in January 2002. He has told his UK lawyers that the British woman officer called herself "Sally".
