Stinky linky.
CPS defends secret proceedings that heard evidence of torture complicity
The Crown Prosecution Service has defended its role in a series of secret court hearings during which evidence of British involvement in the torture of a terrorism suspect in Pakistan was heard behind closed doors, with the public and media excluded.
In an operation later denounced in the Commons as an "obvious case of the outsourcing of torture", MI5 and MI6 officers and detectives from Greater Manchester police all played a part in the events that led to Rangzieb Ahmed being unlawfully detained in Pakistan, where three of his fingernails were ripped out.
But their involvement was largely concealed from the public as a result of the CPS's successful application for the use of in camera procedure.
The CPS failed to explain why it had applied for in camera hearings in the Ahmed case, other than to say that they had been authorised and controlled by an experienced high court judge. It also declined to comment on subsequent reports by a United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and parliament's human rights committee, which both concluded that conduct of the sort that was disclosed during the Ahmed case amounted to official complicity in torture.
Last month Human Rights Watch reported that there was clear UK complicity in the torture of Ahmed and several other British citizens detained in Pakistan.
The Crown Prosecution Service has defended its role in a series of secret court hearings during which evidence of British involvement in the torture of a terrorism suspect in Pakistan was heard behind closed doors, with the public and media excluded.
In an operation later denounced in the Commons as an "obvious case of the outsourcing of torture", MI5 and MI6 officers and detectives from Greater Manchester police all played a part in the events that led to Rangzieb Ahmed being unlawfully detained in Pakistan, where three of his fingernails were ripped out.
But their involvement was largely concealed from the public as a result of the CPS's successful application for the use of in camera procedure.
The CPS failed to explain why it had applied for in camera hearings in the Ahmed case, other than to say that they had been authorised and controlled by an experienced high court judge. It also declined to comment on subsequent reports by a United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and parliament's human rights committee, which both concluded that conduct of the sort that was disclosed during the Ahmed case amounted to official complicity in torture.
Last month Human Rights Watch reported that there was clear UK complicity in the torture of Ahmed and several other British citizens detained in Pakistan.
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