UK spy chief: UK must work with other countries

LONDON — The head of Britain’s domestic spy agency said Friday that Britain’s security services try to make sure they do not collude in the torture or mistreatment of detainees by foreign governments, but acknowledged it was not possible to guarantee that it never happened.

Jonathan Evans, director-general of domestic security agency MI5, said that following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, Britain had to work with other countries that had more experience dealing with al-Qaida related terrorism, even if those countries operated on different standards.

“Our intelligence resources were not adequate to the situation we faced and the root of the terrorist problem was in parts of the world where the standards and practices of the local security apparatus were very far removed from our own,” he said.

Evans made his comments at a speech at his former college, Bristol University, in the west of England Thursday evening. The speech was made public Friday.

“Given the pressing need to understand and uncover al-Qaida’s plans, were we to deal, however circumspectly, with those security services who had experience of working against al-Qaida on their own territory, or were we to refuse to deal with them, accepting that in so doing we would be cutting off a potentially vital source of information that would prevent attacks in the West?” he said in the speech.

“In my view we would have been derelict in our duty if we had not worked, circumspectly, with overseas liaisons who were in a position to provide intelligence that could safeguard this country from attack,” he said.

Evans said Britain’s security services “work hard to ensure that we do not collude in torture or mistreatment.”

“Enormous effort goes into assessing the risks in each case, But it is not possible to eradicate all risk. Judgments need to be made,” he said.

Evans’ comments come a month after Britain’s foreign intelligence agency, MI6, reported one its officers to authorities amid concerns over the U.K.’s possible complicity in torture. Police are also investigating claims that an MI5 officer was complicit in the mistreatment of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee.

The British government was forced to admit last year that one of its remote outposts — the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia — had twice been used by the United States as a refueling stop for the secret transfer of two terrorism suspects. Human rights group say the practice of transferring suspects without formal extradition proceedings opens the door for third-party countries to torture and interrogate suspects outside international standards.

Evans said he could not comment on specific cases. He said he did not condone all aspects of U.S. policy but said intelligence sharing with U.S. authorities was vital.

“I do not defend the abuses that have recently come to light within the U.S. system since 9/11,” he said. “But it is important to recognize that we do not control what other countries do, that operational decisions have to be taken with the knowledge available.”

Evans said he accepted criticisms from the British parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee — a panel of lawmakers that meets in private to scrutinize intelligence work — which said Britain’s security services were slow to detect patterns in U.S. practice after Sept. 11, 2001, but added: “The U.K. has gained huge intelligence benefits from our cooperation with the U.S. agencies in recent years, and the U.S. agencies have been generous in sharing intelligence with us.”