Recent developments raise the prospect that British intelligence agents could finally face justice for their little-known role in the CIA’s global torture program.
Britain’s foreign and domestic intelligence apparatus is facing scrutiny by a tribunal tasked with intelligence oversight. On May 26, London’s infamously opaque Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) unanimously issued a landmark ruling which means the complaints of two Saudis brutally tortured at CIA black sites and jailed for years in Guantanamo Bay can finally be heard, at least behind closed doors.
The British government insisted that the Tribunal, which explicitly examines wrongdoing by London’s security and intelligence agencies, did not have jurisdiction over the cases of Mustafa al-Hawsawi and Abd al-Rahim Nashiri. But the IPT disagreed.
Noting that “the underlying issues raised by this complaint are of the gravest possible kind,” the tribunal declared that “if the allegations are true, it is imperative that that should be established,” as “it would be in the public interest for these issues to be considered.”
The ruling means the Tribunal is likely to hear a complaint from Mustafa al-Hawsawi, who’s remained in US custody since American troops captured the man they claim is “a senior al-Qaida member” in 2003.
Al-Hawsawi bounced between CIA black sites for three years before being shipped to the US torture camp in illegally-occupied Guantanamo Bay in 2006. Along the way, he was subjected to brutal “enhanced interrogation” techniques, including rectal examinations conducted with “excessive force,” from which he was severely injured and reportedly suffers ongoing health problems to this day.
Lawyers for al-Hawsawi say they have proof that British intelligence agents illegally “aided, abetted, encouraged, facilitated, procured and/or conspired” with the US to torture and abuse their client.
Al-Hawsawi is one of just five remaining Guantanamo detainees to have been charged over alleged involvement in the 9/11 attacks.
According to the declassified summary of the US Senate report into CIA torture, al-Hawsawi was one of several prisoners held and abused “despite doubts and questions surrounding their knowledge of terrorist threats and the location of senior al-Qaeda leadership.”
Hellbound and Down 