Before the House of Lords this week the government has been arguing for the right to act on intelligence obtained by torture abroad. Channel 4 has obtained the statement to the Law Lords by the head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Butler. In effect she argues that torture works. It foiled the famous ricin plot.

She omits to mention that no more ricin was found than is the naturally occurring base level in your house or mine ‘ or indeed that no poison of any kind was found. Nor does she recall that there has never been a successful large scale poisoning with ricin. But let us leave that for now.

She argues, in effect, that we need to get intelligence from foreign security services, to fight terrorism. And if they torture, so what? Her chief falsehood is our pretence that we don’t know what happens in their dungeons. We do. And it is a dreadful story. Manningham-Butler is so fastidious she even avoids using the word ‘Torture’ at all in her evidence. Let alone the reality to which she turns such a carefully blind eye.

Uzbekistan is one of those security services from whose ‘friendly liaison’ services we obtained information. And I will tell you what torture means. It means the woman who was raped with a broken bottle in both vagina and anus, and who died after ten days of agony. It means the old man suspended by wrist shackles from the ceiling while his children were beaten to a pulp before his eyes. It means the man whose fingernails were pulled before his face was beaten and he was immersed to his armpits in boiling liquid. It means the eighteen year old whose knees and elbows were smashed, his hand immersed in boiling liquid until the skin came away and the flesh started to peel from the bone, before the back of his skull was stove in.

These are all real cases from the Uzbek security services which we viewed as friendly liaison, and from which we obtained regular intelligence, in the Uzbek case via the CIA. A month ago that liaison relationship was stopped ‘ not by us, but by the Uzbeks. But as Manningham-Buller sets out, we continue to maintain our position as customer to torturers in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, Morocco and many other places.

The key point is that none of the above Uzbek victims were terrorists at all. The great majority of those who suffer torture at the hands of these regimes are not terrorists, but political opponents. And the scale of this torture is vast. In Uzbekistan alone thousands, not hundreds, of innocent men, women and children suffer torture every year. Across Manningham-Buller’s web of friendly intelligence agencies, the number may reach tens of thousands. Can our security really be based on such widespread inhumanity, or is that not part of the grievance that feeds terrorism? Every year the Uzbek government kills many times more innocent people than would realistically have died, even if someone had been able to scrape ricin out of their saucepan. Do those deaths not matter?

How many foreign Muslim lives is one British life worth?

These other governments know that our security services lap up information from their torture chambers. This practical condoning more than cancels out any weasel words on human rights which the Foreign Office may issue.

In fact, the case for the efficacy of torture intelligence is not nearly as clear-cut as Manningham-Buller makes out. Much dross comes out of the torture chambers. History should tell us that under torture people would choke out an admission that they had joined their neighbours in flying on broomsticks with cats. The narrative we get is the precise narrative that the foreign intelligence agency wishes us to hear. They often have their own agenda to plug.

A final thought. Manningham-Buller is arguing from the efficiency of torture in preventing a terrorist plot. If that argument is accepted, then in logic there is no reason to rely on foreign intermediaries. Why don’t we do our own torturing at home? James VI and I abolished torture ‘ New Labour are making the first attempt in English courts to justify Government use of torture information. Why stop there? Why can’t the agencies work over terrorist suspects?

I seem to recall that we tried that approach with the Birmingham 6 and the Guildford 4, and look where that got us.

The Security Services want us to be able to use information from torture. That should come as no surprise. From Sir Thomas Walsingham on, the profession attracts people not squeamish about the smell of seared flesh from the branding iron. That is why we have a judiciary to protect us. I pray that they do.

Craig Murray

Channel 4 News has published a MI5 statement on the use of information extracted by torture.

Channel 4 News has obtained evidence from the boss of MI5, submitted to the House of Lords, which lawyers say makes the claim that ‘torture works’ in obtaining evidence against suspected terrorists.

Eliza Manningham-Buller gave her submission to hearing on the use of torture to obtain evidence.

“In some cases, it may be apparent to the Agencies that the intelligence has been obtained from individuals in detention (“detainee reporting”), though, even then, the Agencies will often not know the location or details of detention. ”

“… experience proves that detainee reporting can be accurate and may enable lives to be saved.”

Citing a specific case, Manningham-Buller said;

“No inquiries were made of … the precise circumstances that attended their questioning of [Mohammed] Meguerba. In any event, questioning of Algerian liaison about their methods of questioning detainees would almost certainly have been rebuffed and at the same time would have damaged the relationship to the detriment of our ability to counter international terrorism.”

The full document can be read and downloaded here: Statement of Elizabeth Manningham Buller (pdf).

The news report can be watched here

By David Lister writing in the Times online

WITH her year-round tan, long blonde hair and designer clothes, Sally Cameron does not look like a threat to national security. But the 34-year-old property developer has joined the ranks of Britain’s most unlikely terrorist suspects after being held for hours for trespassing on a cycle path.

Ms Cameron was being hailed yesterday as Scotland’s answer to Walter Wolfgang, the 82-year-old heckler manhandled out of the Labour Party conference last month. She was arrested under the Terrorism Act for walking along a cycle path in the harbour area of Dundee.

Yesterday, after receiving a letter from the Tayside procurator fiscal’s office informing her that she would not be prosecuted, Ms Cameron said: ‘It is utterly ridiculous that such an inoffensive person as myself should be subject to such heavy-handed treatment.’

She was walking from her office in Dundee to her home in the suburb of Broughty Ferry when she was arrested under new anti-terrorist legislation and held for four hours.

She said: ‘I’ve been walking to work every morning for months and months to keep fit. One day, I was told by a guard on the gate that I couldn’t use the route any more because it was solely a cycle path and he said, if I was caught doing it again, I’d be arrested.

‘The next thing I knew, the harbour master had driven up behind me with a megaphone, saying, ‘You’re trespassing, please turn back’. It was totally ridiculous. I started laughing and kept on walking. Cyclists going past were also laughing.

‘But then two police cars roared up beside me and cut me off, like a scene from Starsky and Hutch, and officers told me I was being arrested under the Terrorism Act. The harbour master was waffling on and (saying that), because of September 11, I would be arrested and charged.’

Ms Cameron, who said that at one stage one of the officers asked her to stop laughing, described the incident as ‘like a scene from the movie Erin Brockovich, with all the dock workers cheering me and telling me to give them hell’. She said: ‘I was told that the cycle path was for cyclists only, as if walkers and not cyclists were the only ones likely to plant bombs. There are no signs anywhere saying there are to be no pedestrians.

‘They took me to the police station and held me for several hours before charging me and releasing me.’

She said that she was particularly galled by the letter from the procurator fiscal’s office, which said that she would not be prosecuted even though ‘the evidence is sufficient to justify bringing you before the court on this criminal charge’.

Keith Berry, the harbour master at Forth Ports Dundee, said yesterday that Ms Cameron had been seen as a ‘security risk’. Speaking about the incident, which took place in May, he said: ‘We contacted the police in regards to this matter because the woman was in a secure area which forbids people walking. It was seen as a security risk. We were following guidelines in requirement with the port security plan set up by the Government.’

A spokesman for Forth Ports said: ‘We will robustly prosecute anyone who breaches these new security measures because they have been introduced by the Government and we are obliged to enforce them.’

On 13 October the House of Commons debated new government anti-terrorist measures being rushed through the house, including the proscription of 15 terrorist organisations. There was little time for debate and no opportunity to vote individually on which organisations should be banned.

I am not, in a practical sense, concerned by the proscription of the Islamic Jihad Union. The evidence that this organisation exists at all is extremely tenuous, and if it does it is almost certainly the fruit of an Uzbek agent provocateur operation. I am greatly concerned by the glib repetition of Karimov propaganda by British ministers.

Craig Murray

13 Oct 2005

Mr. Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD): Liberal Democrat Members do not take substantive issue with the substance of the order, although we have some reservations, to which I shall turn. As my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) said in business questions earlier, we have strong reservations about the manner in which the Government have introduced these measures. Introducing an order listing 15 specified organisations in a circumstance where debate is limited and there is no opportunity for amendment could have put the House in a very difficult situation. As it happens, we do not have any substantive information that would contradict the information that the Minister has helpfully supplied in her letter, but that is a happy circumstance and would not necessarily apply in every case. When I first approached this matter, I shared the unease that was expressed by the hon. Member for Carmarthen, East and Dinefwr (Adam Price) about the listing of the Islamic Jihad Union. Indeed, I continue to feel uneasy about the inclusion of that group among the list of 15. If it had been the subject of a specific order, there would have been greater opportunity for the House to scrutinise its inclusion.

I hope that nobody outside the House will be in any doubt about the view that we take of the Karimov regime, which is entirely despicable and despotic. The Minister’s PPS, the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Stephen Pound), recently did a brave and laudable thing in going there and bringing to the attention of the regime the revulsion that we all feel. I know that the hon. Gentleman and I share a concern about the practice of the Uzbek Government with regard to the operation of the death penalty. The Government’s signals to the Uzbek regime have not always been helpful. I am thinking especially of their treatment of my old friend, the former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, who has done us all a great service in graphically highlighting the appalling human rights record of the Uzbekistan Government.

Adam Price (Carmarthen, East and Dinefwr) (PC): I question the Minister specifically on the Uzbek organisation that appears in the list. According to the right hon. Lady’s own note, it has as its principal aim the holding of elections in Uzbekistan. It does not organise or recruit in the United Kingdom. It was involved in the Andijan uprising in May, which left hundreds of civilians dead. They were killed not by the Islamic Jihad Union but by the brutality of the Karimov regime that it is trying to overthrow. Should we not tread very carefully before proscribing an organisation that has less blood on its hands than a Government with whom we still maintain diplomatic relations?

Hazel Blears: The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. I took a particular look at the organisation to which he refers. The indication, given the information, was that it was perhaps less active here than many of the other organisations that are set out in the explanatory memorandum. I have been assured that the group would cause a threat to British interests overseas in particular. It is always open to any of us to seek to weigh the balance between the actions of one group or another. As for the organisations that are set out in the list, I am saying that the information of the security and intelligence services has been sufficient, when scrutinised carefully by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, for him to reach the decision that proscription is appropriate. I will deal with the provisions on appeal, which are extensive for any organisation that finds itself proscribed.

Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con): Reading the note as carefully as I could, it appeared to me that in respect of the Islamic Jihad Union’I would be grateful if the right hon. Lady were to clarify the matter’it was not its resistance to the Karimov regime that was causing the Government difficulties, but the fact that it was associated with direct acts of terrorism in third countries such as Kazakhstan. Can the Minister confirm that that is the case?

Hazel Blears: There is a range of activities that all these organisations will be undertaking. We have attempted in the explanatory memoranda to outline, as far as we can, the activities that have taken place. As for the Islamic Jihad Union, in March 2004 there was an explosion in Uzbekistan that killed nine people who were involved in the construction of portable improvised explosive devices. Over the following three days, there was a series of shoot-outs and suicide bombings that were carried out in Tashkent, Bokhara and Uzbekistan, leaving about 25 dead and 35 wounded. I also asked about the impact on British interests to satisfy myself that the order was an appropriate way forward.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has carefully scrutinised the information that is available to him. We are being told by the security services that the organisations on the list are of particular concern at this time. That is why the decision has been reached.

Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD): I want to return to the Islamic Jihad Union. It is the organisation that causes some of us concerns because of the country in which it is clearly operating. Can the Minister reassure me that her primary channels of information come from British intelligence and not from Uzbek sources?

Hazel Blears: The information that we receive is from our own security and intelligence services. Obviously, we have very good relationships with intelligence services throughout the world, and it is right that we should also take account of that information. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, in his careful scrutiny of the evidence available to him, will have taken into account a range of different sources in relation to each of these decisions.

Adam Price: Have the Government either sought or received intelligence from the Uzbek Government on this matter?

Hazel Blears: I can give hon. Members the reassurance that they are seeking, as the case on the IJU is based on our own intelligence.

Alan Simpson (Nottingham, South) (Lab): Do other EU countries include the IJU on a proscribed list? Concerns about the Uzbek Government would prompt many of us to prefer to see them on the list rather than groups that oppose them, given that they have carried out acts of cruelty and torture against their own citizens. Have the British Government received representations from the Uzbek Government and other Governments about the inclusion of organisations on the list? It can be argued that many of them display anti-western attitudes, so what representations have been received from the United States?

Hazel Blears: The IJU is proscribed by both the US and the UN, so other countries have concerns about that organisation. As I said, the intelligence on which the Home Secretary reached his decision was from our own sources, so I hope that that reassures Members that the matter has been scrutinised properly and that this is a proper decision. I shall come on to the appeal provisions, which are robust. If groups feel that they have been wrongly proscribed they have recourse to a review.

Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab): Before you come on to that point, I would like to ask you another question about the Uzbeks.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. The hon. Lady must correct her use of language. She is not asking questions of me, but of her right hon. Friend the Minister.

Helen Goodman: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I am sure that what the Minister said about the IJU is correct, but after the uprising in Andijan people were massacred by the Government, and others were tortured into saying that they belonged to radical Islamist groups. How will the Minister make a judgment in practice about whether people truly belong to the IJU, which is to be proscribed, or have simply been tortured into claiming that they do?

Hazel Blears: If an organisation is proscribed, anyone seeking either to become a member or to give it support would be guilty of a criminal offence. Prosecution would be a matter for the courts, and it would have to be brought properly. Evidence would be tested and there would be an opportunity for all the issues raised by my hon. Friend to be explored within the criminal justice system, as would happen with any other kind of offence. There would be an opportunity to discover whether evidence had not been obtained properly or did not stand up under scrutiny or cross-examination. I accept the points made by several hon. Members that other people may have carried out acts that we would all find abhorrent. However, we are talking about whether particular organisations pose such a threat that they should be proscribed. The fact that other organisations may be involved in other activities does not mean that the listed organisations should not be subject to a proscription order.

Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con): I reassure the Minister that the official Opposition will support the order. These are difficult areas, and hon. Members have highlighted the point that it is no light matter for this House to proscribe organisations that may want to set themselves up in this county or that are already operating in this country, if they can be shown to have legitimate aims.

I suggest that a common-sense distinction can easily be made between organisations that seek political change in their country’they might even support freedom fighters’and organisations that support terrorism. The random slaughter of innocent individuals can play no part in the process of trying to bring about political change. The hallmark of the various organisations identified by the Government is that they have engaged in that very activity.

I am mindful of hon. Members’ comments about the Islamic Jihad Union. The Government of Uzbekistan undoubtedly leave a great deal to be desired and may properly be described as “a tyrannical regime”. The fact that opposition to that regime may manifest itself outside the law is perhaps understandable, but that it should take the form of random suicide bombings that kill innocent civilians must be unacceptable. If this House does not send out a signal that it considers such behaviour unacceptable, we are on dangerous ground.

By James Kirkup writing in The Scotsman

Key points

‘ Tony Blair is facing questions over MI5’s backing of the Terrorism Bill

‘ The Bill will allow suspects to be detained for up to 90 days without charge

‘ According to one official, MI5 made no request to extent the detention period

Key quote

“Given this government’s record of making claims of this kind about the position of the intelligence and Security Services, I am extremely sceptical that the Security Service has made the recommendation being suggested,” – Dominic Grieve, shadow attorney general

TONY Blair and the minister in charge of counter-terrorism are facing questions about whether they misled the public over MI5’s backing for the government’s controversial new Terrorism Bill.

Opposition MPs have challenged the government to prove claims by the Prime Minister and HazelBlears, the Home Office minister overseeing the bill, that the Security Service has recommended a crucial part of the legislation.

In an echo of previous controversies over the veracity of government statements about the intelligence and Security Services – such as the row over the “sexing- up” of intelligence over Iraqi weapons programmes – Whitehall insiders have cast grave doubt on claims made by Mr Blair and Ms Blears about the Security Service, also known as MI5.

The Terrorism Bill, published last week, would allow police officers to detain suspects without charge for up to 90 days. Under current law, suspects must be charged or released in 14 days.

The proposal has been criticised by opposition parties, civil rights groups and even the government’s own terror law watchdog.

Ministers, led by Mr Blair, say they have been convinced by arguments for the change made by senior police officers. The Association of Chief Police Officers has publicly called for the new rule.

On 5 August, before the bill was published, Mr Blair clearly suggested that MI5 was also backing the move. “We will also examine whether the necessary procedure can be brought about to give us a way of meeting the police and Security Service request that detention, pre-charge of terrorist suspects, be significantly extended,” the Prime Minister said at a Press conference.

And last week, on the day the bill was published, Ms Blears also said that the Security Service, had argued for the 90-day rule.

“The three-month period is what the police and Security Service say is necessary,” Ms Blears said last Wednesday at the Home Office.

In fact, The Scotsman has learned from credible Whitehall sources that MI5 has not given any such advice to ministers.

The police proposal for the 90-day rule was made at a Whitehall meeting of senior security officials in the wake of the 7 July suicide attacks on London.

According to one official who was briefed on the meeting, MI5 made no request for an extension in the detention period. Nor has the Security Service expressed a view on the need for the rule in its informal discussions with ministers since.

“MI5 were present at the conversations, but they made no recommendations on the detention period,” said a Whitehall official involved in the discussions. The 90-day proposal “was police-led. It originated only with the police”.

Security sources say that MI5 chiefs take the view that their service has no role in recommending specific policies to ministers.

The Security Service has not objected to the 90-day proposal, either. “They don’t object to it in any way, but it didn’t come from them and they’re not pushing for it – that’s not what they do,” said a Whitehall official. “It would not be accurate to say they have said it is necessary.”

Mr Blair’s comment remains on the Downing Street website.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman declined to repeat the assertion that the Security Service had recommended the 90-day rule, confirming only that MI5 officials had been present at meetings to draw up the bill.

As for what, if any, advice MI5 had given, the spokesman said only: “We never comment on the advice of the Security Service.”

Ms Blears’ remark, made to a group of journalists at a Home Office briefing, was reported in several national newspapers last Thursday. The Home Office has not challenged the accuracy of those remarks.

Asked by The Scotsman to reiterate Ms Blears’ comments about the Security Service and the Terrorism Bill, the Home Office last night issued a statement that failed to back up the minister’s position.

“This extension is necessary as the police and law enforcement agencies have to take on increasingly complex and international terrorist organisations who make ever-greater use of new technology such as encrypted computers,” the department said.

Dominic Grieve, the shadow attorney general, yesterday said he was “very concerned” that MI5’s position could have been misrepresented.

“Given this government’s record of making claims of this kind about the position of the intelligence and Security Services, I am extremely sceptical that the Security Service has made the recommendation being suggested,” he said.

“If there is any evidence to support this, it must be published, if not in parliament, then to the Intelligence and Security Committee.”

Mark Oaten, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, agreed. “If the government is going to say that the Security Service is recommending this power, then they should publish the evidence to support that claim.”

“On something as fundamental and serious as this, the government should make available the advice of the Security Service before MPs debate the bill.”

Since August, Mr Blair has not suggested the new measures were recommended by MI5.

Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, has been even more reticent. He surprised MPs on the Home Affairs Committee last month when he admitted the Security Service had not actually advised ministers that foreign-born “hate preachers” should be deported to their home countries.

By Martin Bright writing in The Observer

The Foreign Office has effectively killed the publication of a controversial fly-on-the-wall memoir of the Iraq war by one of Britain’s most senior diplomats, which would have called the conflict ‘politically illegitimate’.

In a move that brought immediate accusations of censorship from its author, The Observer can reveal that Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations during the preparations for war in 2003 and the Prime Minister’s envoy to Iraq following the war, has been blocked in his efforts to reveal ‘certain truths’ about the conflict. He was uniquely well-placed to provide the inside story of the conflict and its aftermath.

But this weekend his publishers in Britain and America were set to pull the plug on the book after the Foreign Office demanded drastic cuts and the removal of references to conversations between Greenstock and the major players in the conflict, including Tony Blair and the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw.

Greenstock told The Observer he was considering other ways of getting his story out: ‘My personal view is that it might be worth saying what I want to say rather than being censored to blandness.’

He refused to elaborate on what this might entail, but opposition politicians last night demanded that Parliament be allowed to question the former ambassador about the contents of his memoirs.

Greenstock, now director of the international affairs institution, the Ditchley Foundation, said it was a pity that the government’s culture of secrecy had prevented him from putting his experiences on the historical record.

Civil service rules prevent senior public servants from writing their memoirs without first submitting them for official approval. The Observer understands that the first two-thirds of Greenstock’s work, The Costs of War, were submitted to the Foreign Office in the spring, when officials indicated that there were only likely to be minor changes.

However, when the final manuscript was delivered in the summer, Downing Street was said to be ‘deeply shocked’ by reports of private ministerial conversations and the deliberations of the UN Security Council. It is now thought the Foreign Office has gone back through the book and demanded further cuts.

The American publisher, Public Affairs, has already removed the book from its online catalogue, and Random House in Britain is now thought unlikely to publish a watered-down version.

Extracts seen by The Observer show that Greenstock saw the conflict as ‘politically illegitimate, but militarily a startling success for the US-led coalition’. He said the decisions made to remove Saddam were ‘honourable’, but that the promise of the post-war period had been ‘dissipated in poor policy analysis and narrow-minded execution’.

In the catalogue entry, now withdrawn, Greenstock wrote: ‘In the UK retired public officials do not normally write books on events still current. I am breaking that convention because the lessons drawn from the saga in Iraq are too important to leave until later.’ Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said Greenstock should be called before Parliament to discuss his book: ‘There is an opportunity here for one of the committees of the house, Foreign Affairs or Defence perhaps, to show its independence from the government by requesting Sir Jeremy to come before it.’

The new chair of the Foreign Affairs committee chair, Mike Gapes, said there had been no communication with Greenstock concerning his book.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: ‘The book is still under discussion in keeping with the proper procedures.’

Although Greenstock said he had not yet decided to defintively pull the plug on the book, he indicated that the cuts required by the Foreign Office would leave little substance to his memoirs.

Publishing sources said the book was highly unlikely to see the light of day while Blair was still Prime Minister