David Davies Calls Government on Torture

David Davis in a statement to the House of Commons last night said that the intelligence services had been "outsourcing torture". He stated information that previously had been suppressed through the process of secret court hearings, putting it into the public domain in the way this government have constantly tried to stop. His statement was about the case of Rangzieb Ahmed:

Rangzieb Ahmed should have been arrested by the UK in 2006, but he was not. The authorities knew that he intended to travel to Pakistan, so they should have prevented that; instead, they suggested that the ISI arrest him. They knew that he would be tortured, and they arranged to construct a list of questions and supply it to the ISI.

Rangzieb Ahmed is a convicted terrorist, I in no way, shape or form defend that. Yet the dismissive rhetorical surrounding this that he deserved to be tortured is disgraceful. It's not about revenge, tic for tac or who's better at torture, it's about doing what's right. It was right to convict him using the law, it was not right to outsource torture and jeopardize the prosecution in doing so. No evidence gained under torture is admissible in a British court, in fact in any court who's country signed the Geneva Convention.

It's easy to be reactionary about terrorists, but I rather Britain didn't become no better than them. I don't want to live in a bomb scared waste land any more than an idealogical equivalent of that. I welcome Davies calls for an inquiry as we need to address this, it has a huge effect on how we use intelligence, address terrorism and our foreign policy. Pretending otherwise helps no one.


The Guardian have over viewed what is know about Britain's role to date, for those unfamiliar with the story.