Straw in the Stink 1095

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The Mail on Sunday is doing a very good job on the odious Jack Straw’s involvement in torture and persecution. I think that at last the truth has entered the established narrative. There is a little box in the report about my own evidence to Scotland Yard. I will type it out here as the Mail’s box format here is not internet searchable:

“Torture” Evidence Handed to the Yard

Further pressure was piled on Jack Straw last night over the “rendition” of Libyan dissident Abdel Hakim Belhadj after sensitive documents were handed to Scotland tard detectives.

Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, passed the documents to police as part of the inquiry into the behaviour of Ministers and intelligence officials over the detention of Mr Belhadj in Bangkok in March 2004.

The opponent of Colonel Gadaffi was flown to Tripoli, where he claims he was tortured.

Mr Straw, who was Foreign Secretary at the time, has denied ever condoning the use of torture to extract information.

But the documents appear to cast doubt on that position.

One memo, headed “Uzbekistan: Intelligence Possibly Obtained Under Torture” contains minutes of a meeting Mr Murray held with senior Foreign and Commonwealth officials on March 8, 2003 to discuss his concern that the UK could be in breach of international law by possessing intelligence obtained by torture.

The minute, dated March 10 2003, quoted Linda Duffield, then the FCO’s Director of Wider Europe, apparently justifying the use of such material as part of the fight against terrorism.

A second memo, dated March 14 2003, and written by Simon McDonald – the Straw’s principal Private Secretary – to Ms Duffield says Straw has read the minutes and “agrees that you handled this very well”.

Mr Murray is understood to have told police that during Mr Straw’s time at the FCO diplomats were told to only refer to the policy on torture verbally.

Mr Murray said last night “My evidence stated that Jack Straw introduced a policy of allowing evidence obtained by torture to be used. I also told them that written evidence had been destrpyed, and we were told to not commit details into writing.”

There is a slight misquote in the above. It should say Jack Straw introduced a policy of allowing intelligence obtained by torture, not evidence. In fact it was specifically stated such intelligence would not be produced as evidence in court (people were imprisoned without charge or rendered instead). The instruction not to put things in writing was given to me personally, I don’t know if others were told the same. As I was the only one protesting, perhaps not.

These links are to the documents in question.

duffieldminute

mcDonald

Wood

The first two were obtained by Freedom of Information Act request. Details of the CIA’s colllusion with the Karimiv regime’s torturers have been redacted by the FCO. Last week Jack Straw came out and argued strongly for the effective abolition of the Freedom of Information Act. Now there is a coincidence for you.

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1,095 thoughts on “Straw in the Stink”

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  • Mary

    Mark What is NBCW?

    .
    PS Ongoing fiasco at Heathrow and Gatwick with massive queues for ‘Border Control’. Many of the desks are unmanned. Brodie Clark was replaced by the CC of Wiltshire Brian Moore. Hard man act just now on BBC. Let them wait seemed to be the watchword. The ‘border’ MUST be kept secure. St Theresa has passed the buck to Damian Green, Minister for Immigration/Queueing.

  • mark golding

    Mary,
    .
    Nuclear, biological and chemical warfare.
    .
    Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has ‘found’ £0.5 billion to upgrade the cyber security role of GCHQ. What this means in real terms is public money is being spent on creating a ‘data farm’ to mine information collected from thousands of public intercepts, email and browsing, complete with geolocation and internet addressing as device MAC address (LAN or Wireless), service provider, individual client IP address and default gateway address. The device MAC address can be used to verify what machine was used to connect to the web.
    .
    That means your computer/smartphone/tablet etc hardware address and IP address will be used to search millions of records to expose your internet history and communications. This information collection *WILL* result in an online profile of *you* to be stored and referenced as necessary. (ie investigations of ‘leaked’ information from whistle-blowers, emails to heads of state, known informants or people with high security classifications), intecepting reported abuses from danger zones and entities organising human rights activist demonstrations in the UK).
    .
    Already, in the US, new IT legislation has been passed by The House of Representative called CISPA, a bill seeking to increase the government’s power to monitor private data online.

    .

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX6aaKElURc
    .
    Cispa – Explained here:
    .
    {http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-04/24/cispa}
    .
    The UK Cyber Security Strategy:
    .
    {http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/security/2011/11/25/gchq-to-take-hub-role-in-uk-cybersecurity-40094512/}
    .
    PDF: {http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sites/default/files/resources/The%20UK%20Cyber%20Security%20Strategy-%20web%20ver.pdf}
    .
    Personally I use ‘TOR’ (the onion router) to enable online anonymity or in my case to frustrate attempts at intercept. It works with the ‘Firefox’ browser and ‘thunderbird’ email. I f you find ‘TOR’ suits your needs please consider acting as a relay to increase network efficiency or a project developer if you can program in ‘C’ or Java (details on the TOR project website).

  • nuid

    Ex-Israeli spy boss says Netanyahu and Barak are deliberately misleading the public about Iran
    .
    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/28/ex-israeli-spy-boss-attacks-netanyahu-and-barak-over-iran/
    .
    “Diskin’s remarks followed a furore over comments made on Wednesday by Israel’s serving military chief, Benny Gantz, which starkly contrasted with Netanyahu’s rhetoric on Iran. Gantz said he did not believe the Iranian leadership was prepared to “go the extra mile” to acquire nuclear weapons because it was “composed of very rational people” who understood the consequences.”

  • nuid

    Meanwhile, Fukushima “hanging by a thread”:
    .
    “… It has taken a year but finally a U.S. Senator finally got off his ass and went to Japan to see what is going on over there. What he saw was horrific. Reactor No. 4 building is on the verge of collapsing. Seismicity standards rate the building at a zero, meaning even a small earthquake could send it into a heap of rubble. And sitting at the top of the building, in a pool that is cracked, leaking, and precarious even without an earthquake, are 1,565 fuel rods.” If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain, this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire that could wipe out most of the northern hemisphere; certainly it would be a massive civilization-breaking event …”
    http://blog.imva.info/world-affairs/hanging-thread

  • Fedup

    Mark golding,
    Tor is compromised, you will find the details in John Young’s site cryptome.org
    ,
    However any attempt in frustrating the bastards is a good attempt including encrypted transactions, after all the spooks ought to earn their living with a bit more than just looking through the facebook pages.
    ,
    You know and I know and they know:their tenuous grip on power makes the carpetbaggers ever so insecure, hence the evolution of the constant surveillance state.

  • Anon

    Israeli leadership insane? So suggests former Shin Bet chief.
    .
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17879744
    .
    Mr Diskin, who stepped down as Shin Bet chief last year after six years, said he had “no faith in the current leadership” of Mr Netanyahu and Mr Barak, according to Israeli media reports.
    .
    “I don’t believe in a leadership that makes decisions based on messianic feelings,” he said at a public meeting.
    ===============================
    .
    If not insane then the “leadership” may genuinely be on a mission from God I suppose…

  • Jives

    Dont be fooled by ex-MOSSAD spooks countering their leaders.
    .
    It’s all part of the shadow play.
    .
    A gambit to create the illusion of discourse,balance and free speech.

  • Jives

    John,ahem,Pillager was turned years ago.Necessary illusions etc…
    .
    Wrong declension in that article John,old boy.
    .
    We-not You-would be preferable.

  • guano

    Mark
    Being a bit of a rebel, I assume that there has existed a government profile about me for ages. In Islam it is absolutely permitted for the state, which has responsibility for our personal security to monitor our activities, and that includes spying.
    I once lived next door to a night-club bouncer, who bounced himself out on a blow-up full-size female doll before work, so that he would not be distracted by the human ones.
    What pisses me off very big time is political Muslims who quite reasonably hate our country for all its previous, current, and till the Day of Judgement future crimes against Islam and humanity, who exchange government obtained confidential blah blah and tittle tattle about private citizens in exchange for other favours, perks, permissions, blind-eyes and huge payments in exchange for depriving fellow Muslims of their citizen freedoms.
    That’s the plan for Islam, to lock it into the prison of the Muslim Brotherhood, encarcerate our minds for thought crimes when it is our absolute human right to discuss, disobey, question authority, experiment, sin …think about sinning.
    I am quite happy to be watched in my bedroom by people who ignore everything except plans for explosions. What I’m not happy about is to be judged for what I do in the privacy of my home in exclusion of what has been done to me.
    If I was in Saudi Arabia, and I was being protected by the Islamic state from neighbouring bouncers fucking blow-up or human female dolls, and there was a level playing field with clear ground rules, then I would accept the application of Shariah. Shariah is coming here, courtesy of Mons Venus Clinton and Willie Hague. Because they understand that the combination of ratcheted up sexual liberation and severe Shariah control will weaken Islam and Muslims, even more than bastards who gave out clear ground rules like Saddam Hussain.
    Islam says of those who collaborate with Islam’s enemies, that we should kill them first. I certainly don’t take the tiniest bit of notice of the huffings and puffings of political Islam when it has the broomstick of Hague and Clinton up their blow-up, self-aggrandising plastic backsides. With a bit of luck they will get punctured soon and we can be shot of the lot of them.
    Phphewwwwh-sssssssssspfh.

  • Mary

    Well done to the young man who lives in the building that is proposed to accommodate the Rapier missiles. He has spoken out. Being attacked by some for being unpatriotic. Sky News wheeled that dreadful woman Rosemary Hollis on. She can always be relied upon to up the terrrrrrist threat.
    .
    I thought this comment on Brian Whelan’s Twitter https://twitter.com/#%21/brianwhelanhack was apposite.
    .
    ‘On the basis of the leaflet received by @brianwhelanhack earlier today I’m concerned it’ll be the Olympics and Paramilitary games.’
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    More:
    {http://www.blowe.org.uk/2012/04/plans-confirmed-for-missiles-over.html}

  • Rob Royston

    Any sensible person would say that if we need Rapier missiles on the roofs of peoples homes, then we should be talking about cancelling the Olympics immediately.

  • nuid

    So Chomsky is a “gatekeeper”, and now Pilger has been “turned”? Where’s the evidence for any of that?
    Is Fisk in somebody’s pocket too?
    .
    Paranoia will destroya. Don’t you think the state of the media is bad enough, without writing off the few good apples we have left?
    .
    Did you know that Obama’s Social Security Number is tied to a man called Harrison J Bounel? We know this because a debt collector by the name of “Al”, who is a CHRISTIAN (!!) and voted for Obama first time round, says so:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6tvti9um6k

  • nuid

    Apparently, an independent Scotland will be a huuuge terror risk to the UK!
    .
    “INDEPENDENCE for Scotland could leave all parts of the UK more vulnerable to terrorist attack due to the risk of communication failure between intelligence services, a former leading police officer has warned.
    .
    “Graeme Pearson, a Labour MSP who was formerly director general of the Scottish Crime and Drugs Enforcement Agency (SCDEA), says having two intelligence services rather than one would create “a minefield of challenges” in the fight against terrorism …” etc etc
    http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/independent-scotland-a-terror-risk-1-2263860

  • Mary

    The total wealth listed in the S Times Rich List is over £414 billion.
    .
    The top ten
    The Sunday Times Rich List Top 10

    1. Lakshmi Mittal and family, steel: £12,700m

    2. Alisher Usmanov, mining and investment: £12,315m

    3. Roman Abramovich, oil and industry: £9,500m

    4. Sri and Gopi Hinduja, industry and finance: £8,600m

    5. Leonard Blavatnik, industry: £7,580m

    6. Ernesto and Kirsty Bertarelli, pharmaceuticals: £7,400m

    7. The Duke of Westminster, property: £7,350m

    8. David and Simon Reuben, property and internet: £7,083m

    9. John Fredriksen and family, shipping and oil services: £6,600m

    10. Galen and George Weston and family: retailing: £5,900m

    .
    Cameron isn’t doing too badly either. His wealth is offshore.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/9218119/David-Camerons-inherited-family-wealth-based-in-foreign-tax-havens.html
    .
    What a hypocrite. WE are all in IT together. Ha!
    He was pumped full of testosterone this morning on Marr. Furious and would not be interrupted as he performed his spiel on Murdoch/Hunt. WE do not believe you Mr Cameron. It was probably all rehearsed anyway. I switched off when the subject changed to the economy. What economy?
    {http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17886068}

  • John Goss

    I missed this so if anyone posted on it previously apologies. Paul O’Flynn is still fighting for justice over the Gus O’Donnell whitewash. As well as suggesting that the prime miister may have broken ministerial code he only learnt of the retirement of Sir Philip Mawer when he wrote to him and got a reply from someone else. I suspect the retirement was forced because Mawer was the only person at the time in a position to properly preside over the ‘whitewash’ Gus O’Donnell presided over.
    .
    ‘The extraordinary events surrounding the resignation of Sir Philip Mawer and the unannounced appointment of his successor require explanation. Paul Flynn wrote a letter to Sir Philip and was surprised to receive a reply from Sir Alex Allen. It may be unprecedented for a change of role to take place with such extraordinary secrecy and subterfuge. It’s a reasonable conclusion that the Government intention was to conceal the resignation and the new appointment to avoid unfavourable publicity.’
    .
    http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmpubadm/1761/176109.htm
    .
    I’ve blogged today on the number of inquiries presided over by people about to retire. If you’re interested click the blue link beneath my name.

  • nevermind

    After having had a positive, friendly and turbulent weekend in Essex, I have to say that a surface to air missile system will not be able to deal with small scale remote control vehicles/airplanes/helicopters/ and or gliders.

    These provide enough sufficent payload to deliver a complertely homecooked burger, with your own relish and extra golden fried onions, right in front of the counter of the fast food merchants.
    let them eat home made burgers!
    http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/missiles-stationed-on-top-of-flats-1

  • Mary

    Thanks John. Well said and spot on. You have probably heard O’Donnell’s name being mentioned in the News Intl/Hunt case. He cleared Hunt to make the decision on the bid. Later it went to Ofcom when a storm blew up.
    .
    ‘The cabinet secretary, Lord O’Donnell, had rejected complaints that Hunt was not capable of making an impartial ruling on the takeover.’
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/apr/24/leveson-inquiry-hunt-newscorp-bskyb
    .
    PS I like your photo of your sleeping dogs.

  • Mark Golding - Children of Iraq Association

    Guano,
    .
    A rebel or a revolter? Rebels of course lives by their own rules or the rules of a small minority. I believe it is the right of all peoples to live and thrive free from exploitation, terror and war.
    .
    Yet we find ourselves in an age of terror, war and exploitation that has choked human potential. The vision of a world fit for progeny has to this day failed fulfillment. Millions of us have been murdered by imposition.
    .
    About 4.3 million children under five die each year from preventable diseases and malnutrition — over 60 per cent of them before reaching their first birthday. About 6 million children under five suffer from malnutrition in the form of stunting, with low height for their age. About 23 per cent of the total population have no access to safe drinking water, and 45 per cent lack adequate sanitation. Children in sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, are facing a life-threatening crisis as a consequence of armed conflict, HIV/AIDS and poverty. (UNICEF – The State of the World’s Children)
    .
    Commercial exploitation of children is over a million in the U.S. and half that in Eastern and central Europe (UNICEF). In the West, sexual exploitation of children in general is prodigious, monstrous.
    .
    The coordinated, holistic approach to child abuse and the available statistics demonstrate we can learn from Islamic law, regulation and legislation.

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