Govt 'lied' over extraordinary rendition
Ministers said Amanatullah Ali, a Shia Muslim, was a member of an extremist Sunni Muslim group
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Monday, 07, Dec 2009 05:20
By Matthew Champion.
Ministers lied to parliament over the extraordinary rendition of two men to a notorious US black site secret prison, it was claimed today.
Legal charity Reprieve, which represents detainees at Guantanamo Bay and other facilities, said then defence secretary John Hutton misled MPs in a statement to the Commons in February.
In it he admitted that two men captured in Iraq by UK forces in 2004 had been handed over to US forces, it later emerging they had been transferred to Bagram in Afghanistan.
"The individuals transferred to Afghanistan are members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a proscribed organisation with links to al-Qaida," Mr Hutton said.
"The US government have explained to us that those individuals were moved to Afghanistan because of a lack of relevant linguists to interrogate them effectively in Iraq.
"The US has categorised them as unlawful enemy combatants and continues to review their status on a regular basis.
"We have been assured that the detainees are held in a humane, safe and secure environment that meets international standards that are consistent with cultural and religious norms."
Reprieve said its requests to the government for the two men to be identified had fallen on deaf ears, but that its own investigation had revealed one man to be Amanatullah Ali, a rice merchant father-of-five from a village in the Punjab, Pakistan. Mr Amanatullah's family told Reprieve he was a Shia Muslim and a fluent Arabic speaker.
But the other could only be identified as "Salahuddin". This second man is known to be from the Gulf states and is said to be in a "catastrophic mental and physical shape".
Reprieve said its investigation had exposed the then defence secretary's statement to be factually incorrect on a number of grounds.
As a Shia Muslim there are no circumstances under which Mr Amanatullah could be affiliated with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), an extremist Sunni Muslim group that views all Shias as heretics.
The claim that the US did not have linguists to interrogate them in Arabic-speaking Iraq is also called into question by the fact that both men were fluent in the same language.
And finally, under a memorandum of understanding between the US and UK with regards to rendition, the detaining power (in this case London) can force the accepting power (Washington) to return prisoners at any time for any reason.
"Government ministers misled parliament and the country by denying that we had anything to do with rendition and then, when John Hutton 'apologised' for this, he misled parliament again," said Clive Stafford Smith of Reprieve.
"The government now appears unwilling to admit that they are still propagating falsehoods."