A damning report has strongly criticised Britain for colluding with the US in the torture and rendition of terror suspects.
The document named the UK as a country which violated human rights by being involved in or turning a blind eye to abuses.
Britain was condemned for co-operating in the murky US practice of ‘extraordinary rendition’ – illegally transferring terror suspects to secret CIA jails in countries that allowed torture.
Damning: A report has strongly criticised Britain for colluding with the US in the torture and rendition of terror suspects. This image shows Guantanamo Bay in Cuba
The Constitution Project dossier also claims MI5 agents under the last Labour government knew prisoners were ill-treated at the hands of their captors.
The findings were made by an independent American task force which concluded ‘indisputably’ that the US ‘engaged in the practice of torture’ after the September 11 attacks.
An 11-strong panel of experts spent two years investigating the country’s treatment of military detainees. They found the US used interrogation methods violating international laws – including waterboarding, sleep deprivation and extraordinary rendition.
Their document also criticised the detention of 166 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
More...
Euro judges rule that terror suspect wanted in America CAN'T be deported from Britain to the U.S. because it would be bad for his mental health
For years, Labour ministers denied involvement in rendition. But the report pointed out that the UK had paid out around £10million to more than a dozen detainees after they were illegally rendered and tortured.
Cori Crider, from human rights group Reprieve, said: ‘Torture – a crime – was committed and authorised at the top levels of the US government. Britain is just starting to face up to its role in this sad saga.’
Tory MP Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition, said: 'This concludes that the United States engaged in kidnap and torture, in violation of its own laws and of international treaties. The report takes us a step closer to the truth.
'It is in the national interest of not just the U.S. but also of Britain to uncover the truth about the scope of the extraordinary rendition programme. Only then can we draw a line under it and move on.'
Criticism: The findings were made by an independent American task force which concluded 'indisputably' that the US 'engaged in the practice of torture' after the September 11 attacks
For years, Labour ministers denied involvement in rendition.
The report pointed out that the UK had paid out more than £10million in compensation to more than a dozen detainees after they were illegally rendered and tortured.
It said: 'In one of its most important findings, the Task Force concluded that the extraordinary rendition program — which has inherent problems with human rights and international legal standards — was extended, and thus abused, to deal with people like the Libyans, who had nothing to do with Al Qaeda or
the September 11 attacks.'
The task force flag up two dissidents who were abducted and handed to Colonel Gaddafi's torturers with the alleged help of Tony Blair's government.
Abdel Hakim Belhadj is suing the British Government, its intelligence agencies and former foreign secretary Jack Straw for helping transfer him illegally to Libya, where he was tortured.
Mr Belhadj and his wife were seized in Malaysia in 2004 and flown to Tripoli on a CIA jet, which it is claimed flew via Diego Garcia, the British territory in the Indian Ocean.
Meanwhile, Sami al Saadi was dispatched with his wife and four young children from Hong Kong to Tripoli where he was imprisoned and maltreated.
Both 'rendition' operation - conducted with apparent MI6 support - took place around the time that Mr Blair visited Libya for the now infamous 2004 'deal in the desert' summit that reinstated diplomatic and trade links with Colonel Gaddafi.
They were both leading members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which helped overthrow Gaddafi's regime.
Mr al Saadi also sued MI5, MI6, the Foreign Office and Home Office as well as Mr Straw but was last year given £2.2million to buy his silence.
The report also highlights the UK's involvement in the case of former Guantanamo Bay inmate Binyam Mohamed, who has claimed British intelligence officers were complicit in his harrowing ordeal in prisons in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan.
He has alleged he was beaten, deprived of sleep and had his genitals sliced with a scalpel to make him confess to an Al Qaeda 'dirty bomb' plot.
In 1998, the British High Court heard that an MI5 agent known only as 'Witness B' admitted grilling Mohamed in Pakistan when he appeared to be in a 'vulnerable' state.