Daily archives: January 11, 2006


Rendition Flights: Ministers will not be able to avoid the scandal for ever

The Guardian looks forward to future Parliamentary action to hold ministers to account on rendition flights and comments on the current state of inactivity.

“In Britain, there is nothing, despite an absolute duty imposed on the government by its domestic and international legal obligations to investigate allegations of torture and ill-treatment. Ministers appear to have something to hide and the issue will not go away.”

By Richard Norton-Taylor in The Guardian

As they contemplate the future leadership of their respective parties, MPs returning to Westminster from their holidays insist there is another issue that they will not be distracted from. That is the government’s attitude, still to be satisfactorily explained, towards America’s practice of “extraordinary rendition” – flying Islamist suspects to secret camps where they are likely to be subjected to torture.

An all-party parliamentary group set up to probe the issue is preparing a number of moves this month to get to the truth. The group is chaired by Andrew Tyrie, Conservative MP for Chichester, who has two deputies – Chris Mullin, the former Labour Foreign Office minister, and Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman and candidate for his party’s leadership. They are determined to get answers to questions that ministers and officials have been so reluctant to provide. The Council of Europe is also on the warpath.

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