http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2020404/Guantanamo-Bay-prisoners-interviewed-Scotland-Yard-explosive-new-twist-MI6-torture-enquiry.html

 

Sunday, Jul 31 2011

Guantanamo Bay prisoners to be interviewed by Scotland Yard in explosive new twist to MI6 torture enquiry

By James Slack

Last updated at 11:25 PM on 29th July 2011

Scotland Yard detectives plan to interview prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in an explosive twist in the MI6 torture inquiry.

Police are investigating whether an unnamed Secret Intelligence Service officer witnessed the inhumane treatment of detainees by the U.S. military.

Officers have asked the U.S. government for permission to travel to the Cuban detention camp and interview terror suspects who may have seen the incident, according to ITV News.

Quizzed: Prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay are set to be questioned by Scotland Yard to find out whether they were tortured in Afghanistan

The investigation began in September 2009 after MI6 referred ‘an incident’ at Bagram U.S. Airbase to the Attorney General, who passed it to the police.

Detectives are trying to track down many of the nearly 50  prisoners who were at the base in Afghanistan in January 2002. Some of these are at Guantanamo.

Police have reportedly already spoken with one man who was held at Bagram, Sami el-Hajj, a cameraman who was arrested in Pakistan and released in 2008. He alleges prisoners were brutally treated, if not tortured.

In an interview in London in May, he told police: ‘The soldiers came and kicked me and threatened to shoot me if I moved. I could hear the shouting of others. They left me on the ground, repeating the same questions, “Why have you come to fight us?” I was telling them that I was a journalist not a fighter but they continued to hit me.’

Open up: Nearly 50 prisoners the Yard want to quiz are now at Guantanamo

He allegedly added: ‘Other abuses that I was told happened included tying the person’s hands behind his back, and pushing his face into a bucket of water so he would feel he was drowning.’

Sami el-Hajj says that he and a number of others who were at Bagram in January of 2002 were transferred to Guantanamo Bay.

He was released in 2008 but he claims one man, who is still in Guantánamo, was threatened with rape at Bagram, given a toothbrush and told to clean the cage in which they were held.

It is not suggested that the MI6 officer under investigation witnessed or took part in any of this alleged mistreatment.

Police are investigating whether he conducted an interview with a detainee and warned his superiors that he was concerned about his ‘handling’.

When they suggested to him what he had described may not be proper, he took no further action, they believe.

An inquiry set up by the Prime Minister into claims that the British Security and Intelligence services turned a blind eye to the abuse of suspects in US custody has been delayed partly because of the ongoing police investigation.

In October 2010 Sir John Sawers the Chief of MI6 said: ‘Torture is illegal and abhorrent under any circumstances, and we have nothing whatsoever to do with it.’

But experts say there was a period where there were concerns about the inhumane treatment of prisoners held by other countries.

The scene: US soldiers stand guard beside prison cells at Bagram prison, north of Kabul where incidents of torture taking place are being investigated

Find this story at www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2020404/Guantanamo-Bay-prisoners-interviewed-Scotland-Yard-explosive-new-twist-MI6-torture-enquiry.html

© Associated Newspapers Ltd

 

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs