Barrow MP Hutton apologises for terror suspect blunder
Last updated at 17:06, Thursday, 26 February 2009
Defence Secretary John Hutton today apologised after admitting that, contrary to previous Government assurances, two suspected terrorists captured by UK forces in Iraq were subsequently transferred by the US to Afghanistan.
The Barrow and Furness MP said the two were members of Lashkar e Tayyiba, a proscribed organisation with links to al Qaida.
After a detailed review, he said it had been established that officials were aware of the transfer in early 2004.
“Brief references to this case” were included in “lengthy” papers to the, then, Foreign and Home Secretaries without its significance being highlighted at the time.
“In retrospect, it is clear to me that the transfer to Afghanistan of these two individuals should have been questioned at the time”, Mr Hutton told MPs.
The pair were still being held in Afghanistan and the US has given assurances that they were held “in a humane, safe and secure environment”.
The announcement reopens the row over “extraordinary rendition” - the term used by the US for sending terror suspects for interrogation by security officials in other countries, where torture is not illegal.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband last year admitted two such flights landed on UK territory in 2002, when US planes refuelled on the British dependent territory of Diego Garcia, but ministers have consistently denied any direct British involvement with the practice.
First published at 14:26, Thursday, 26 February 2009
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk
The problem with government which ever party it maybe is that they listen to Human Rights and do gooders too much and don't do the obvious. These terror suspects should be deported without question, the fact that there maybe an attack on their lives is simply not our problem. We as a country are week when it comes to making decisions like this, its embarrasing. Maybe the Human rights people should have hime living in their house! Maybe its time for Cameron and Clegg to show the way?!!.......maybe not. This country lives on paperwork! by the time you've filled in a thousand form, had meetings, many discussion included evryone and his dog you've just lost the will to live. Just get rid of these lunitics!!
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Torture can never be approved in a civilised country. Apart from it being repulsive, it can only create martyrs and fuel the fires of terrorism.
I only hope I will never be tested so I can stick to my pacifist and ethical beliefs.AND YET...
Would I really stick to my beliefs IF a terrorist, murderer, or anyone else capable of outrageous deeds, had planted a bomb and refused to say where â laughing at the frustrations being experienced by his (or her) interrogators? Same thing for a child murderer who refuses to say where his young, dying victim has been hidden?
Would I? Would you, stand by?
If we refuse to try some kind of action to get information to genuinely save lives, what does that make us?
Revenge torture can never be right, neither can torture merely to create an atmosphere of fear.
But surely there must be drugs (truth drugs?) that can manipulate the mind into giving up its secrets? Or was all that science fiction?
Posted by Gladys Hobson on 17 December 2010 at 17:30