Just before I gave my evidence to Parliament yesterday, my sister Celia telephoned me to say that I would be speaking not for myself but for all those thousands who had suffered unspeakable torture around the World in the War on Terror, whose screams and sometimes death rattles were heard only by their torturers. She told me I was speaking for those who could not speak.
She put me into a calm place, and I tried to give my evidence very coolly and professionally, but I believe I did manage once or twice to break through the twisted legalese in which the committee have mummified themselves, to bring home the human cost of torture to them.
You can see my evidence here:
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/VideoPlayer.aspx?meetingId=3978
If that disappears, Tony has kindly put it onto YouTube which you can find here:
http://tenpercent.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/craig-murrays-evidence-on-youtube/
But I am completely astonished, and horribly depressed, that there has been almost no mainstream media of this quite sensational information. There has been not one word in any newspaper or on TV. The Today programme on Radio 4 ran a story on it at 6.45am, but did not repeat it. A piece went up immediately on the BBC website
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8023111.stm
but it is very difficult to find it there without the url.
I really cannot understand why no newspaper or TV channel has covered what is quite a startling development in a prominent continuing story on the use of torture in the War on Terror.
I had hoped that my evidence yesterday would be a significant step in ending the policy of obtaining intelligence from torture, and of bringing to account the ministers who approved it. But without any sign of public or media interest, the politicians will feel they can safely ignore the truth I told.
I was trying to speak up for those who have no voice. I feel very strongly that I have let them down.
Only their torturers heard their screams, and hardly anybody else heard my voice either.
Dissident Voice have an article by Tom Burghardt on a reinstated lawsuit against a Boeing subsidiary that flew the five plaintiffs for rendition and torture. They include Binham Mohamed.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/04/torture-flight-lawsuit-against-boeing-subsidiary-reinstated-by-us-appeals-court/
Torture Flight Lawsuit Against Boeing Subsidiary Reinstated by U.S. Appeals Court
by Tom Burghardt / April 30th, 2009
In a victory for the rule of law and for victims of state-sponsored torture, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth District in San Francisco, reinstated the ACLU’s landmark lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen DataPlan.
The civil lawsuit, Mohamed et al. v. Jeppesen DataPlan, Inc., was filed in 2007 on behalf of five men who were kidnapped, forcibly disappeared and then secretly transferred to CIA “black sites” or into the clutches of allied intelligence services. The victims claim they were horribly tortured, subjects of what the Bush regime has termed “enhanced interrogation.”
The plaintiffs are Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian-born British resident arrested in Pakistan with the complicity of the CIA, Britain’s MI5 and Pakistan’s notoriously corrupt Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI). For eighteen months, Mohamed was secretly detained and tortured in Morocco. In 2004, he was blindfolded, stripped, shackled and flown by CIA agents on a flight organized by Jeppesen DataPlan to the secret U.S. detention facility in Kabul, Afghanistan known as the “Dark Prison.” In Afghanistan, Mohamed was repeatedly tortured before his transfer to the Guantanamo Bay gulag. He was released earlier this year without charge.
/continues……
Sorry for typo – s/be Binyam
“I was trying to speak up for those who have no voice. I feel very strongly that I have let them down.”
Craig, frankly that is rubbish. You have not let them down. You have done exactly what you should have done, no more and no less. It’s always difficult to be objective about one’s own actions but believe me, you’ve done far more than many others would have – or could have.
Let’s not kid ourselves, man’s turpitude is virtually endless. But, chin up – the battle goes on. This is a long war and we must take comfort and heart from each small victory. You’ve done well. Remember, only a few short weeks ago even this was beyond your grasp. Your evidence is now a matter of public record, and that is all to the good.
Just watched your evidence again on BBC Parliament. It simply and amply reinforces my view that you handled the quesioning very well. Sands was also interesting – ‘regularity’ seems to be the pivotal aspect, and one which you clearly demonstrated. ‘Condoning’ and ‘complicity’ are interesting terms, too.
Of course such (deliberate) passivity whilst morally repugnant, is not necessarily illegal.
Dismore still does not impress me.
Now we’re obliged to wait.
Craig, the uncorrected Hansard of your evidence is now online at:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt200809/jtselect/jtrights/uc230-ii/uc23002.htm