UK: Hard to eradicate risk some allies use torture

LONDON — Britain has abandoned some attempts to gather intelligence from detainees held overseas for fear they may be abused, the foreign secretary said Tuesday.

But David Miliband also said he could not guarantee that Britain’s allies would refrain from abusing detainees.

Miliband was speaking to parliamentary foreign affairs committee after recent revelations that flights carrying terror suspects have landed in Britain en route to foreign detentions centers. In addition, former Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed accused Britain of colluding with the United States in his alleged torture in Pakistan and Morocco.

“We abhor torture. We will not cooperate or collude with it,” Miliband said. But he acknowledged it can be difficult to be completely certain about the actions of partners overseas.

He said some allies have lower legal standards and use practices not allowed in Britain, meaning British officials may face legal and ethical dilemmas when pursuing intelligence from detainees held by foreign governments.

“Operations have been blocked on the grounds that the risk of mistreatment is too high,” he said. “Equally, it is not always possible to eradicate the risk of mistreatment — a judgment has to be made.”

In a letter to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and released after Tuesday’s session, Miliband said: “When detainees are in our custody, we can be sure of how they are treated … when they are not, we cannot have the same degree of assurance.”

Human rights campaigners have criticized the treatment of detainees in countries such as Pakistan, Egypt and Morocco. In some cases, British citizens have been involved.

London police are deciding whether there is evidence that British intelligence officials should face criminal charges over allegations that they were complicit in the alleged torture of Mohammed.

Separately, British courts are considering several lawsuits filed by men who claim the U.K. was aware of their mistreatment overseas.

Mohamed — an Ethiopian who moved to Britain as a teenager — was arrested as a suspected terrorist in 2002 in Pakistan. He alleges Britain’s MI5 domestic spy agency was aware he was tortured in Pakistan and in Morocco, before he was transferred to Guantanamo in 2004. He was released from Guantanamo in February.

British officials deny they had knowledge that Mohamed was abused. But Miliband is waging a legal battle to block publication of sections of documents which could reveal whether U.K. officials helped Mohamed’s interrogators by providing questions for him.

Miliband says that disclosing the documents — which relate to discussions with the United States over Mohamed’s case — could jeopardize Britain’s intelligence relationship with America.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that previously secret rules for British spies and soldiers on handling detainees overseas will be made public. He has also ordered the guidelines to be redrafted.

Last year, Miliband was forced to tell lawmakers that Britain had been misled by the previous U.S. administration over the use of Diego Garcia, a British island in the Indian Ocean, as a refueling stop in extraordinary rendition. He said ex-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had belatedly informed him two detainees were aboard rendition flights to Guantanamo Bay and Morocco in 2002 that stopped on the island.