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Public need answers in 'shocking' MI6 rendition scandal, says senior Tory
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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/01/mi5-chief-right-to-be-disgusted-over-mi6-role-rendition-blair

Andrew Tyrie says it is essential to establish who authorised secret operations ‘to draw a line under this sorry episode’

Andrew Tyrie, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition
Andrew Tyrie, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian
Richard Norton-Taylor
Wed 1 Jun 2016 12.47 BST

A senior Conservative MP has described the continuing cover-up of Britain’s complicity in the kidnapping and torture of detainees in the “war on terror” – and of who authorised it – as a shocking scandal that must be resolved without further delay.

Andrew Tyrie, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition, made clear that an answer to the key question – who knew about the secret operations – was getting closer.

Tyrie, also chair of the Commons liaison committee of senior backbenchers and the Commons Treasury committee, was responding on Wednesday to the Guardian’s disclosure that the former head of MI5 was incensed when she discovered the role played by MI6 in abductions that led to suspected extremists being tortured.

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Lady Eliza Manningham-Buller was so angry that she threw out a number of her sister agency’s staff and banned them from working at MI5’s headquarters at Thames House in London.

She wrote to Tony Blair, then the prime minister, to complain about the conduct of MI6 officers, saying their actions had threatened Britain’s intelligence gathering and may have compromised the security and safety of MI5 officers and their informants.

Her letter was discovered by investigators examining whether British intelligence officers should face criminal charges over the rendition of the exiled Libyan opposition leader Abdul Hakim Belhaj.

“This letter strongly suggests Tony Blair, the former head of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove, and Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5, all knew that secret agents were engaged in the rendering, and possibly subsequent maltreatment, of prisoners,” Tyrie told the Guardian. “It is now essential to establish who authorised this rendition. The chances of it not having been authorised would appear low. Were it unauthorised it would be criminal.”

Section 7 of the 1994 Intelligence Services Act protects MI6 officers from prosecution for actions anywhere in the world that would otherwise be illegal. They would be protected as long as their actions were authorised in writing by the foreign secretary, who is the minister responsible for MI6. At the time the office was held by Jack Straw.

Eliza Manningham-Buller.
Eliza Manningham-Buller. Photograph: D Dudley/Pacific/Barcroft
Tyrie told the Guardian: “It is a scandal and shocking that, after nearly a decade of demanding answers, the public still don’t know the scope and limits of the UK’s complicity in kidnap and torture. Public confidence in the security services has been eroded as a consequence. We need them. It is now essential that the prime minister ensures that the ISC [parliament’s intelligence and security committee] are able to get to the bottom of this, and without delay. Only by doing so can a line be drawn under this sorry episode.”

Tyrie clashed with David Cameron at a meeting of the liaison committee in January, arguing that the ISC should have more effective powers to scrutinise the security and intelligence agencies.

Separately, a leading human rights group said Manningham-Buller was “right to be disgusted” over MI6’s involvement in secret rendition – the seizure and interrogation of suspected extremists.

Cori Crider, a lawyer at the international human rights organisation Reprieve, said: “You know MI6 under Blair’s government were running amok when their role in CIA kidnap operations turned even the stomachs of MI5. Yet now, according to this report, officials are exercising mass tactical amnesia over who signed off the most appalling abuses in the ‘war on terror’. The notion that ‘the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] cannot bring a charge against a government policy’ of torture is obviously wrong.”

Crider added: “Lady Manningham-Buller was right to be disgusted. The rendition of the Belhaj and al-Saadi families to Libya wasn’t just illegal – it broke every value Britons hold dear. It’s a damning assessment when even the hard-nosed head of MI5 could see that delivering a pregnant woman and four children to Gaddafi’s dungeons was wrong, pointless, and made Britain less safe. There clearly is a case to answer here, and Reprieve aren’t the only ones who think so. We eagerly anticipate the long-delayed decision of the CPS.”

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