Remote Indian Ocean island holds key to understanding UK role in rendition

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/13/diego-garcia-secret-cia-flights

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Diego Garcia, a British overseas territory leased as a military base to the US since 1966, may as well be on the moon for all it means to most Britons. But each month fresh evidence emerges of the key role the Indian Ocean atoll played in extraordinary rendition, the ghosting of terrorist suspects to CIA interrogation black sites around the world.

The toxic question for the government is to what extent it knew the practice was happening. The answer has ramifications not just for the UK's relationship with the US but also the future of its nuclear weapons programme.

For years Foreign Office ministers have stonewalled questions about Diego Garcia, in particular what records they have of flights in and out of the atoll. In 2008, Margaret Beckett, then foreign secretary, said that "the record-keeping was not all that marvellous, frankly. It was very difficult for the government to answer questions."

But last week a Foreign Office official was photographed carrying documents marked "sensitive" that suggest the UK authorities now have significantly more information about the flights in and out than previously acknowledged.

The documents – a series of printed- out emails, written by an administrator for the Foreign Office's British Indian Ocean Territory section – appear to confirm that monthly and daily flight logs are now in the possession of the police. In notes scrawled on the documents, he suggests the Foreign Office press office should become "more active" on the issue. He also appears uncertain as to whether he should release important information. The phrase "what else in public domain?" is clearly legible on the document.

"This document suggests the government is more interested in presentation than the truth when it comes to the central role it played in CIA torture flights," said Cori Crider, a lawyer with human rights group Reprieve. "The prioritisation of spin can be seen in the reference to a 'more active' press office. Meanwhile, the worried scribble 'what else in public domain?' hints at the iceberg of damaging information ministers want to keep from both parliament and the public."

Diego Garcia's unusual status makes it suitable for those keen to avoid legal oversight. Britain has consistently refused to say if, in respect to Diego Garcia, it recognises the UN convention against torture and the international convention on civil and political rights as the atoll is officially unpopulated.

This may explain why, shortly after 9/11, the US sought to use it as detention centre for high-value detainees. Opposition from the UK forced the US to use Guantánamo Bay in Cuba instead. But Manfred Novak, the UN former special rapporteur on torture, told the Observer in 2008 he had credible evidence that detainees were held on Diego Garcia between 2002 and 2003. A former US general, Barry McCaffrey, said in 2006 that Diego Garcia had been used to hold detainees, though he later withdrew the claims. A CIA flight plan shows that, in 2004, the agency planned to render Abdulhakim Belhadj, an opponent of Muammar Gaddafi, and his pregnant wife, via Diego Garcia. The Metropolitan police are investigating this claim.

More light was shed in 2008 when David Miliband, then foreign secretary, conceded in parliament that two US planes, each carrying a single detainee, had refuelled on Diego Garcia in 2002. The revelation embarrassed Tony Blair who, in March 2007, told the Commons intelligence and security committee he was "satisfied" the US had not rendered an individual through any of the UK's overseas territories.

One of the rendered men is believed to have been Mohammed Saad Iqbal Madni, who was seized by the CIA in Indonesia in January 2002 and taken to Egypt. He was subsequently taken to Afghanistan then Guantánamo Bay, before being flown to Pakistan and freed in 2008. Madni is unable to walk unaided as a result of the electric shocks he received in Egypt.

The second man is thought to be Shaykh al-Libi, who was transferred from a US warship off Diego Garcia, and also taken to Egypt, where, under torture, he claimed al-Qaida was in league with Saddam Hussein in the development of weapons of mass destruction – statements that were cited in support of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Reprieve now believes that Miliband's 2008 statement to parliament referring to the two refuelling stops was based on an analysis of flights made by only 20% of the planes used in the rendition programme. The true number emerged in a lawsuit that revealed how two companies – DynCorp Systems and Solutions LLC and Computer Sciences Corporation – were contracted to operate a network of planes on behalf of the CIA.

Confirmation that Diego Garcia was used as a CIA black site is expected when the US Senate publishes a declassified intelligence report in the autumn. But many in Washington believe it will be heavily redacted making it difficult to gauge the UK's complicity.

Both countries have a vested interest that the focus shifts off Diego Garcia. In return for leasing the atoll to the US, the UK receives a 5% reduction in the research and development costs associated with its use of the US-owned Trident nuclear missile programme. A new lease must be negotiated by December. The clock is ticking. What the UK knew about what was going on in Diego Garcia may not become fully apparent until negotiations about its future have concluded.