U.K. denies request for information on detainees

[unhappycamper]

U.K. denies request for information on detainees
By Bryan Mitchell, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Monday, December 3, 2007

RAF MILDENHALL, England — The British government has denied a formal request for information on the whereabouts and status of a group of Afghan youths who were detained at RAF Lakenheath earlier this year.

Stars and Stripes filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the British Home Office on Nov. 1 following several failed attempts to obtain information about the eight Afghan youths.

The Home Office, which handles duties roughly equivalent to those of the departments of State and Homeland Security, said releasing information on the Afghans would violate the country’s data protection statutes.

“It is the general policy of the Border and Immigration Agency not to disclose, to a third party, personal information about another person. This is because the Border and Immigration Agency has obligations under the Data Protection Act and in law generally to protect this information,” states a letter from Border and Immigration FOI officer Patricia Glasby.

“We have concluded that the information which you have requested would breach the first Data Protection principle and therefore we cannot supply the information you have requested,” the letter continues.

The Afghans were detained March 8 after they were discovered stowed away in the back of a soft-shelled bread delivery truck en route from a Defense Commissary Agency facility in Germersheim, Germany, to RAF Lakenheath.


Rest of article at: http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=50697