A convicted terrorist has won leave to appeal after his legal team convinced appeal court judges that evidence of UK complicity was substantial enough to support a case.
Rangzieb Ahmed's counsel, Joel Bennathan QC, told the judges that the British intelligence agencies were significantly linked to the torture which took place in Pakistan, in which Mr Adhmed's fingernails were ripped out by interrogators.
Judge Nicholas Cooke QC, who agreed to publish the judgment at a later date following vetting by M15 and M16, agreed that the issue of UK complicity was serious enough to warrant an appeal.
The decision came days after the government “wriggled out” of a judicial review over its interrogation policy by promising to launch an inquiry.
An application for judicial review by legal action charity Reprieve was rejected by the High Court yesterday after the government’s counsel announced new guidance for MI5 and MI6 agents was “imminent”.
Mr Justice Collins accepted that there could be a case to answer for surrounding claims that the UK was complicit in the abuse of prisoners abroad, but that no immediate action should be taken in light of the government’s promise of review.
Reprieve welcomed the admission, but slammed the government’s failure to commit to a date for the publication of fresh guidance on the intelligence service’s interrogation tactics.
Speaking after yesterday’s judgment, Cori Crider, legal director at Reprieve, said: “Our government wriggled out of a hearing today with one promise: that a new ‘torture policy’ would be published ‘very soon’. Reprieve has been looking out for this policy since March 2009, when prime minister Gordon Brown made the same promise.
“So the question, now the promise has been repeated in open court, is simple. Where’s the policy? When is ‘immediately prospective’? It is cold comfort to an abused prisoner in a cell in Lahore or Nairobi or Sana’a to hear that it is ‘coming’. We need clarity now.”
Reprieve sought a judicial review to assess the legitimacy of ‘secret guidance’ given to field agents, the existence of which has slowly emerged through government policy since 2002.
Following increasing pressure to reveal the details of its policies to the public, the previous government had vowed to unveil a new policy back in March 2009, which never materialised.
Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve, added: “I am glad that the pressure we have brought has focused the government’s attention on adopting a legitimate torture policy, but we need a date certain, rather than more delay and obfuscation. Disclosing legal advice hardly betrays a national secret.”
The government’s pledge came as New York-based Human Rights Watch published a damning report of France, Germany and the UK’s approach to intelligence gathering.
The 62-page report, ‘No Questions Asked: Intelligence Cooperation with Countries that Torture’, claims the three governments use information gained by foreign torture for intelligence and policing purposes.
Judith Sunderland, senior Western Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch, said: “Berlin, Paris, and London should be working to eradicate torture, not relying on foreign torture intelligence. Taking information from torturers is illegal and just plain wrong.”
The government’s counsel in Reprieve’s judicial review application, James Eadie QC, told Collins J that the release of the new policy was "prospectively imminent".
Conceding only that the announcement would come before the end of the year, a spokeswoman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: “We have made clear in the Programme for Government that we will never condone the use of torture. Ministers are discussing many of the issues raised in this report in the National Security Council and there will be further announcements in due course.”