On 18 January the government announced that the Gibson Inquiry into British state complicity in the torture and rendition of detainees would be scrapped. This was not a surprise and certainly no cause for regret. The Inquiry, set up in 2010 in an attempt to stem the steady and deeply incriminating flow of evidence of such complicity, was already dead. So flawed were its parameters and so limited its powers that human rights organisations and lawyers for former detainees had already withdrawn their cooperation. MI5 and MI6 would have been permitted to give their evidence, unchallenged, in secret and the Inquiry had no powers to compel witnesses to attend. In addition, its chair, Peter Gibson, was heavily compromised as a former commissioner for the intelligence services.
onetheless, the Inquiry was useful for former Labour ministers, notably Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, to fob off questions about what they had sanctioned as part of Britain’s role in the ‘war on terror’. For 18 months the Inquiry was on hold, pending police investigations into MI5 and MI6 complicity in the savage torture of Binyam Mohamed in Pakistan, Morocco and Guantanamo and another, unnamed, detainee at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan. Now, disgracefully, Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer has decided that no British agents will be charged due to ‘lack of evidence’.
Instead, a criminal investigation will be launched into the alleged rendition and ill-treatment of two people in Libya, following the discovery of papers in the office of Libya’s former chief of secret services (see FRFI 223). One of them is a letter from Sir Mark Allen, then head of MI6, exposing Britain’s involvement in the 2004 rendition and interrogation of Libyan Abdul Hakim Belhadj, now head of the Tripoli Military Council. No wonder the government wants these claims quietly investigated by the police rather than put in the public domain.
The current government and the former Labour government have fought to prevent any information about British complicity in torture and rendition being made public. Former Labour Foreign Minister David Miliband prevented all but a shred of information about MI5’s involvement in the torture of Binyam Mohamed emerging in court. In 2010, the Coalition shelled out millions of pounds to buy the silence of 16 former Guantanamo detainees who were suing the government and security services, and to prevent the disclosure of thousands of documents. These would have shown that between 2002 and 2007 the Labour government was closely involved in allowing the abduction and torture of British residents by or on behalf of MI5 and MI6.
No wonder that former Labour Foreign Minister Jack Straw – who lied to parliament about Britain’s involvement in secret rendition and who recommended the transfer of detainees to Guantanamo – has welcomed the decision to drop the Gibson Inquiry. Justice Minister Kenneth Clarke has said that when all police investigations are over, there will be a new judge-led, independent inquiry. This is a smokescreen. The Coalition government will continue to ensure that Labour’s war crimes are swept under the carpet. It is only by continuing to protest and to name Jack Straw, Tony Blair and the heads of MI5 and MI6 as war criminals that there can be any chance of justice for those tortured at Britain’s behest.
Cat Alison
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 225 February/March 2012
