Britain is condemned today in a highly critical UN report for breaching basic human rights and "trying to conceal illegal acts" in the fight against terrorism.
The report is sharply critical of British co-operation in the transfer of detainees to places where they are likely to be tortured as part of the US rendition programme. It accuses British intelligence officers of interviewing detainees held incommunicado in Pakistan in "so-called safe houses where they were being tortured".
It adds that Britain, and a number of other countries, sent interrogators to Guantánamo Bay in a further example of what "can be reasonably understood as implicitly condoning" torture and ill-treatment. It said the US was able to create its system for moving terror suspects around foreign jails only with the support of its allies.
Some individuals faced "prolonged and secret detention" and practices that breached bans on torture and other forms of ill-treatment, the report says.
It highlights concerns about "the increasing use of state secrecy provisions" and accuses the UK, along with the US, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania and the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, of concealing "illegal acts from oversight bodies or judicial authorities".
The report says information that is inaccurate and wrongly recorded can lead to innocent people being identified as terrorist threats, referring to Bisher al-Rawi, a British resident seized in Gambia after MI5 tipped off the CIA.
Also see: Philip Gourevitch, Standard Operating Procedure, Abu Ghraib and the Long Form Interview on Prison Photography