Nick Clegg: ex-ministers should give evidence to UK torture inquiry

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/15/nick-clegg-ministers-uk-torture-inquiry

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Nick Clegg has said senior figures in the last Labour government should give evidence to parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC) on what they knew about torture conducted by UK or US intelligence agencies in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The deputy prime minister said it was clear that the intelligence agencies should have disregarded any evidence from the Americans if it was obtained by torture.

The ISC has said it will investigate allegations of British complicity once a police investigation has been completed.

Clegg said a preliminary report by a panel led by Sir Peter Gibson looking into allegations of torture found no evidence of UK complicity in torture but raised many disturbing questions.

He praised the chairman of the ISC, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, and added: “We should use the additional muscle given to the ISC to fully explore these murky events in the past. If people are found to have broken the law, the full weight of the law should come down on them without fear or favour, however operationally grand they are.”

He noted there had been two cases of rendition through the British territory of Diego Garcia in 2002, which were confirmed to parliament in 2008.

He said: “Torture is wrong in any circumstances, there are no ifs and buts. You cannot as a free democratic society lower yourself to the barbaric standards of those who want to destroy our way of life. You cannot absolve yourself by knowingly using information that you know has been derived from treatment that is illegal or strictly contrary to our values.”

The home secretary, Theresa May, will be questioned by MPs later on Monday about whether she knew Britain was making representations to redact evidence from a Senate committee’s report on CIA torture, published last week.

Donald Campbell, spokesman for the human rights group Reprieve, said there were several questions that should be put to the home secretary. “Did the British government seek the redaction or removal from the public version of the report of any information which would demonstrate UK involvement in CIA rendition and torture? Why has the government U-turned on its pledge to hold an independent, judge-led inquiry into UK torture complicity? And in the light of the gravity of the CIA torture report’s findings, will it make good on its original promise,” he asked.