MI6 officer investigated over torture allegation

[oldironside]

"Fresh questions were raised tonight about the behaviour of British officials towards terror suspects by the disclosure that MI6 had referred one of its officers to the attorney general over allegations of complicity in torture.

The unprecedented move was disclosed in a letter from David Miliband, the foreign secretary, to his Conservative shadow, William Hague. He said MI6 had acted on its own initiative, "unprompted by any accusation against MI6 or the individual concerned".

The Metropolitan police specialist crime branch said Lady Scotland, the attorney general, had asked it to investigate "the conditions under which a non-Briton was held" and the "potential involvement of British personnel".

Officials were reluctant to say anything more about the case other than it was "unrelated" to that of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident who says he was tortured and ill-treated in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Morocco and Guantánamo Bay.

The police are separately investigating allegations of what the high court has called "possible criminal wrongdoing" by an MI5 officer involved in Mohamed's secret interrogation."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/11/mi6-investigated-over-torture-allegation

Maybe there is hope for the UK after all. Do we still have a moral compass?

[oldironside]

1. I'm quite stunned that no one has commented on this...

... and even more gobsmacked that more than twice as many people have read the story I posted about the policewoman call girl.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

3. The nature of people

Fluff stories do get more attention from the public. I would imagine that more copies of Nuts and Closer magazines are sold than copies of Private Eye and the New Statesman.

[LeftishBrit]

2. Horrible. At least it's being investigated

Hope that it doesn't end up swept under the rug, as so often.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

4. Do we still have a moral compass?

I don't know if we ever had one. The authoritarian aspects of the state in Britain were historically carried out elsewhere, in Northern Ireland and in Britain's retreat from formal empire. Great Britain itself usually got off lightly as far as civil liberties are concerned, although corruption and miscarriages of justice were always potential forms of oppression.