London – The defence secretary made an unusual public apology on Thursday, admitting that Britain had taken part in the "rendition" of suspects held in Iraq when it had previously always denied doing so.
In a lengthy statement to parliament, Defence Secretary John Hutton confirmed that Britain handed two suspects captured in Iraq in 2004 to U.S. custody and that they were subsequently transferred to Afghanistan, breaching U.S.-British agreements.
The Ministry of Defence has repeatedly been asked over the past five years about its involvement in rendition, the transfer of suspects captured or held in Iraq and Afghanistan, and consistently denied that it has played any role.
"I regret that it is now clear that inaccurate information on this particular issue has been given to the House by my department on a small number of occasions," Hutton said. "I want to apologise to the House for these errors."
The case relates to two men seized by British troops in southern Iraq in February 2004. They were transferred to U.S. detention and later flown to Afghanistan, where they remain in U.S. custody. Both are said to be members of Laskhar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based group with links to al Qaeda.
The U.S. has provided assurances that the suspects are being properly treated, Hutton said.
INQUIRY
But such assurances have been questioned in the past and human rights group said it was time the government "came clean" once and for all.
"We have been asking the government for years now to have a full-blown, public inquiry into these matters and this inquiry has been resisted and resisted," Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, told the BBC.
"The pressure to lift the lid on clearly some very unsavoury things that happened in the name of the war on terror, the pressure has had to come from lawyers and through the courts."
Asked about Hutton’s apology, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said there was nothing illegal about Britain’s involvement in the rendition process.
The Americans, he said, had merely breached a long-standing agreement that people captured by British forces in Iraq would not be transferred out of Iraq without prior consultation.
"I think, basically, we were let down by the Americans, hence the need to apologise today," he said.
However, human rights lawyers and members of parliament suggested the Ministry of Defence was trying to play down the extent of the problem, and said there were no guarantees that Britain had not been complicit in "extraordinary rendition."
Extraordinary rendition, which involves transferring a suspect to a third country where they risk being subjected to torture and abuse during interrogation, goes one step further than rendition and is considered illegal by Britain.
Andrew Tyrie, who heads an all-parliamentary group looking into extraordinary rendition, said it was time the government held an inquiry into its involvement with the U.S. programme.
"U.S. assurances that it does not use torture are unreliable, as the foreign affairs committee concluded in its human rights annual report published last year," he said.
"Given that all previous assurances have been baseless, we can have no confidence in the ones we are being given now. The government must now carry out a comprehensive inquiry in order to bring closure to this sorry business."