Eliza Manningham-Buller, former head of MI5, is engaged in an outrageous attempt to rewrite history, by claiming we were unaware that the CIA was getting intelligence from torture. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/exmi5-head-us-hid-torture-tactics-from-uk-1918945.html The government knew the CIA was sending us intelligence from torture from at least November 2002, when I sent a diplomatic telegram to Jack Straw and [...]

Even the coincidence of the broadcast of Murder in Samarkand with renewed national debate on our collusion with torture, did not break through the UK media’s blacklisting of me and my eye witness and documentary evidence that the policy of intelligence from torture had direct ministerial direction from Jack Straw. Here is Russia Today showing [...]

Saloon bar bigot Bruce Anderson came out with a fierce defence of the government’s use of torture. It could have been written by Torquemada, Walsingham or Franco. To get that vital information about the ticking bomb, it would be morally imperative to torture the terrorist’s wife and children, he concluded. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/bruce-anderson/bruce-anderson-we-not-only-have-a-right-to-use-torture-we-have-a-duty-1899555.html Interesting is it not [...]

Since the judgement in the Binyam Mohammed case, there has been a resurgence in the awareness of our government’s policy of collusion in torture. Kim Howells and David Miliband have been telling outright lies in denying it, while Bruce Anderson is leading the “Torture the Muslim bastards” wing. With the government issuing blatantly lying denials, [...]

Having been roundly defeated in the Court of Appeal, and with it now established beyond doubt that the UK knew that Binyam Mohammed was being tortured by the USA, Miliband has the massive effrontery to welcome the decision. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/feb/10/david-miliband-binyam-mohamed-statement The truth about the government’s complicity in torture is becoming established beyond doubt. I am still [...]

Obviously I feel a great deal of sympathy with Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin. Those of us who reveal connivance by our own governments in gross human rights abuse, find little protection from fleeting media support and interest. One thing I would underline which Colvin said, as it mirrors precisely my own experience in Uzbekistan: He [...]

The documents I obtained under the Freedon of Information Act yesterday are irrefutable evidence that Jack Straw lied to the parliamentary inquiry into extraordinary rendition. This is what Straw said: I set out the British Government’s position on this issue on a number of occasions, including in evidence both here and to the Intelligence and [...]

Finally I have indisputable documentary evidence that the British government had a positive policy of using intelligence from torture in the War on Terror, and that the policy was personally directed by Jack Straw. Here are the minutes of the meeting at which I was told this: Download file All references to the CIA and [...]

Some cheerful news from Italy, where 23 American CIA agents have been convicted of kidnapping over an extraordinary rendition case. There do survive pockets of genuine independent judiciary in Europe. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/04/cia-guilty-rendition-abu-omar In the UK, you cannot present someone before a court who was brought there illegally. I know this because I was trying to organise [...]

Am at Schiphol again at 5.30am, after an overnight flight from Accra, waiting eight hours for a connecting flight to Washington, and thinking “Why oh why do I put myself through this?” Slightly mitigated by the joy of being able to post again on a working internet connection. AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN, IRAN, IRAQ, VIETNAM: EXPOSING OFFICIAL [...]

A particularly damning example of New Labour’s Stalinist approach to propaganda. The FCO website carries news of the High Court judgement in the Binyam Mohammed case. If you click on the headline, it gives you an utterly mendacious statement by Milliband attacking the High Court judgement – but nowhere on the website does it give [...]

It is my birthday today, and I feel rather pleased with the progress being made on exposing the torture crimes of New Labour. Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett’s “Get Out of Jail Free” card has been that the courts accept the argument that national security overrides all, and the biggest threat to national [...]

This brief documentary is wel worth watching. Sadly there is nothing equivalent on UK complicity that I am aware of, and we are still struggling to get the comparable documents. It feels like I am one of only a handful of campaigners who really seems to care. Obama’s collusion in the US cover-up is just [...]

Tom Harris MP being the fool in question. He thinks that the people who concocted the lies about Iraqi WMD, thus launching a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, are the best choice to be in parliament: I would have thought it in our country’s interest to have an MP ?” of whatever [...]

Precisely 38 minutes after I posted a blog entry pointing to definite proof of Jack Straw’s complicity in torture, one Helen Wright added this comment, which I thought deserved a wider audience: I thought you were removed for buying sex from vulnerable young women in foreign countries? Apparently you enjoy sex with a kilt on [...]

Jack Straw took the policy decision that the UK would receive intelligence obtained under torture by the CIA and other liaison intelligence services. He has been denying it ever since, and described my evidence to the Parliamentary Joint Human Rights Committee as “entirely untrue”. In the White House and at the Pentagon, such respect had [...]

Finally, with its second jury, the State obtained the conviction of three people for attempting to blow up airliners with liquid bombs, as the end result of the greatest of all terrorist plot media hypes. We are left with the continuing War on Shampoo at the airports. Let us for now accept the convictions as [...]

Head of MI6 Sir John Scarlett has come out saying the UK is not complicit in torture. I can tell you from direct personal knowledge that the man is a lying. That is, of course, hardly news. Scarlett was responsible for the dossier on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, which was a tissue of lies [...]

The parliamentary joint committee on human rights has this morning published its report on UK complicity in torture. The headline is a call for a full public inquiry on the subject. Download file The most salient fact in the entire report does not feature prominently. Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Home Secretary Alan Johnson both [...]

The cumulative evidence of UK complicity in torture is now so overwhelming as to be undeniable. Yet nobody is held to account, and in a curious British way, while it is not exactly denied it is not exactly admitted either. Until New Labour are gone, plainly there will be no real moves to get to [...]