Britain spoke to US about CIA report

12 December 2014 Last updated at 11:47

British intelligence agencies spoke to US counterparts about a report into CIA interrogation before it was published, Downing Street has said.

No 10 did not say the UK had asked for information to be left out, but said if requests were made it would not have been to hide UK involvement in torture.

Officials previously said no redactions had been requested, but Downing Street now says any requests would have been made for "national security reasons".

The report found "brutal" tactics used.

The report, which looked at treatment of detainees in the years after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, is a 525-page summary of a 6,000-page document produced by Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee. The full document remains classified.

Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate committee, said CIA tactics - which included repeated waterboarding, slapping, stress positions and sleep deprivation - amounted to torture.

A version of the report was finished in 2012, but there were disagreements about what should be published. Part of this process was a "classification review" by the CIA into what information should remain classified.

Ground 'shifting'

The published report contains no reference to UK agencies.

BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said that on Wednesday "Downing Street said to the best of their knowledge they hadn't asked for any redactions from that report".

But he said the "ground seemed to be shifting" on Thursday, as a Downing Street spokeswoman said there had been a conversation between UK and US intelligence services about the executive summary of the report.

"So it looks as though redactions were requested," our correspondent said.

"But she [the spokeswoman] went on to say these were on the grounds of national security, not on the grounds of British complicity in torture or any British involvement, either directly or indirectly, in the mistreatment of suspects."

Information obtained from the Foreign Office by human rights charity Reprieve in August suggested UK officials had met members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on 24 occasions over the previous five years. The charity did not request details of the subjects discussed.

In a letter to Reprieve in July, William Hague - then foreign secretary - said: "The UK government has not sought to influence the content of the Senate report.

"We have made representations to seek assurance that ordinary procedures for clearance of UK material will be followed in the event that UK material provided to the Senate committee were to be disclosed."

Government ministers and UK security and intelligence agencies MI5 and MI6 have always said torture would never be used by Britain to extract information.

Parliament's intelligence and security committee is currently examining the question of whether the UK was complicit in the US mistreatment of suspects.

On Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said he would be open to a full judicial inquiry if the committee failed to answer key questions.

Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang

Britain spoke to US about CIA report

Dengan url

http://cangkirtehhangat.blogspot.com/2014/12/britain-spoke-to-us-about-cia-report.html

Teh Hangat