Monthly archives: January 2008


Civil servant who leaked rendition secrets goes free

From Guardian Unlimited

Secrets charges against a Foreign Office civil servant were dramatically dropped at the Old Bailey yesterday after it emerged that senior figures within his own department had privately admitted no harm was done by his leaking a series of Whitehall documents.

The case against Derek Pasquill, who faced jail for passing secret papers to journalists, collapsed as it was becoming increasingly clear that it could have caused the government severe political embarrassment.

The leaked documents related to the US practice of secretly transporting terror suspects to places where they risked being tortured, and UK government policy towards Muslim groups.

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Criminal investigation starts over deleted CIA torture tapes

From BBC online

The US justice department is to launch a criminal investigation into the CIA’s erasing of videotapes of interrogations of two al-Qaeda suspects.

It follows last month’s preliminary joint inquiry with the CIA into whether a full investigation was necessary.

Critics have accused the CIA of a cover-up to hide evidence of possible torture and abuse of detainees.

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