MPs Seek Release Of Secret Files On UK Role in US Rendition

London, Nov 12, IRNA – MPs are seeking the release of intelligence documents under the Freedom of Information Act alleged showing the involvement of British officials in US renditions to Guantanamo and other secret jails. “Government statements denying UK involvement in rendition have been shown to be false by subsequent statements and court decisions,' lawyers for the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition told an information tribunal on Thursday. Andrew Tyrie, the group's chair, referred to inaccurate statements by former ministers that were shown to be false years later only after persistent questioning from MPs and journalists. Two examples included the government having to admit that the British Indian Ocean territory of Diego Garcia had been used by the US in CIA rendition flights and UK soldiers handing over to the US two men, subsequently incarcerated in the notorious prison in Bagram, Afghanistan, Tyrie said. The parliamentary group is challenging the refusal of the Foreign Office to release of files on secret rendition on the grounds that the documents relate to issues of national security and therefore are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. But Tyrie argued that their disclosure would 'help to restore confidence' in the credibility of the security services and the Foreign Office. Prime Minister David Cameron has already been forced to concede the setting up of an inquiry into the UK's alleged role in torture and rendition. But the inquiry is being boycotted by human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, because it lacks credibility and transparency and is “deeply flawed'. The UK government also announced last year that it will pay millions of pounds in compensation to former Guantanamo Bay detainees but denied it was an admission of British complicity in torture./end