UK complained to US about terror suspect torture, says ex-MI5 boss

• Waterboarding of 9/11 suspect was 'concealed'
• Manningham-Buller criticises Bush staff

• Richard Norton-Taylor
• The Guardian, Wednesday 10 March 2010
• Article history

Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller criticised George Bush and his administration, for torture of terror suspects Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Getty Images

The government protested to the US over the torture of terror suspects, the former head of MI5, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller revealed last night.

She also said the Americans concealed from Britain the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 2001 attacks.

"The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing," Lady Manningham-Buller told a meeting at the House of Lords.

She also admitted MI5 were slow to recognise that the US was torturing detainees. Asked if Britain protested, she replied: "We did lodge a protest." She declined to elaborate but it is believed that the protests were made at ministerial level.

Manningham-Buller was answering questions after delivering a lecture in parliament sponsored by the Mile End study group set up by Queen Mary, University of London.

She said that in 2002 or 2003 she questioned how the US was able to supply Britain with intelligence gleaned from Sheikh Mohammed.

"I said to my staff, 'Why is he talking?' because our experience of Irish prisoners and terrorists was that they never said anything," she said.

"They said the Americans say he is very proud of his achievements when questioned about it. It wasn't actually until after I retired that I read that, in fact, he had been waterboarded 160 times," Manningham-Buller said.

She criticised senior figures in the Bush administration, including the president himself, Dick Cheney, the vice-president, and Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary for their attitude towards the treatment of terror suspects. She added: "Nothing, even saving lives, justifies torture."

Referring to criticism of MI5, and notably evidence in the mistreatment of the UK resident Binyam Mohamed, she said in her speech: "The allegations of collusion in torture and lack of respect for human rights will wound [MI5 officers] personally and collectively and, in some respects, whether proven or not, will make it harder for them to do their job."

Last month, Lord Neuberger, the master of the rolls, said MI5's insistence in a court case that it was unaware of the harsh treatment of some detainees held overseas in CIA custody was unreliable.

Manningham-Buller confirmed that Britain was aware of mistreatment cases before she left office.

In an original draft of a ruling, Neuberger also criticised MI5's supposed lax attitude toward the mistreatment of detainees. Manningham-Buller's successor as MI5 director, Jonathan Evans, has rejected the claims, and warned that the courts risk being exploited by those seeking to undermine British counterterrorism work.

But Manningham-Buller said she believes the allegations of complicity in torture could disrupt the future work of MI5 staff.

She spent 33 years in British intelligence, and was head of MI5 between 2002 and 2007. She said British spies are proud to be quietly effective, unlike the "gung-ho UK" intelligence officers portrayed in TV dramas.

"One of the sad things is Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush all watched 24." Manningham-Buller said, referring to the popular TV show about a counterterrorist agent. She said future terrorist attacks would involve chemical, biological and radioactive weapons. "After the next terrorist attack, there will be calls for fresh legislation, which should be resisted. The criminal law as it stands is enough. We have masses of legislation that deals with terrorism."

She predicted the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, which was heavily criticised recently for its failure to hold MI5 to account, would be turned into a fully-fledged committee in the House of Commons.

While catching up on local news, I was shocked to read that a school near my home town of Worcester has installed CCTV in the children's toilets.

I wasn't shocked that it happened, because I have read so many stories recently about people in low level positions of authority who assume they have a 'right to spy' that trumps any else's right to privacy. What shocked me was the headline itself. It didn't say "Headmaster arrested for installing CCTV in children's toilets", or "Headmaster resigns after being caught installing CCTV in children's toilets." It didn't even say "Headmaster apologises after installing CCTV in children's toilets." Instead the headline was a plain and unadorned "Chelmsley Wood school puts CCTV in pupil toilets."

It's time for us to decide what sort of world we want our children to grow up in. Do we want them to learn by example that privacy is not a basic human right, or a guiding principle that the law proudly upholds, but a forgotten dream? Or is it time to say enough is enough?

We are in danger of sleepwalking into a surveillance state. The school may not have broken any law, but that does not mean that we must accept this as just the latest step in the unstoppable erosion of our right to privacy. I believe it means that a law that sets reasonable, clearly defined limits on this sort of spying is long overdue. Unless we have that law, we will be powerless against the likes of Steve Chase, chief executive of Grace Academy, and his omnipresent cameras. He said, with no hint of sarcasm that the Sunday Mercury mentioned in their report, that the cameras were fitted 'due to health and safety concerns'.

I believe that we need to protect our children from the likes of Steve Chase. If you believe that too, then it's time to vote Pirate.

Press Release, 2 March 2010

High Court grants injunction against BAE settlement

The High Court has granted an injunction prohibiting the Director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) from taking any further steps in its plea bargain settlement with BAE Systems.

The injunction is in force until the Court has decided whether or not to give permission to Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and The Corner House to apply for a judicial review of the settlement. It will make this decision by 20 March 2010.

Lawyers acting for The Corner House and CAAT formally lodged papers seeking judicial review permission on Friday 26 February 2010, together with a request for the injunction.

ENDS

For further information or an interview please contact:
Kaye Stearman of CAAT, on 020 7281 0297 or 07990 673 232 or Nicholas Hildyard of The Corner House on 01258 473795 or 07773 750 534.

Legal documents

Injunction
Detailed Statement of Facts and Grounds

Background

The Serious Fraud Office has been investigating alleged bribery and corruption in BAE%u2019s arms deals since 2004 in several countries (including Chile, Czech Republic, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Tanzania). BAE is alleged to have paid bribes, often in the form of commissions to "advisers" to clinch the deals.

On 1 October 2009, the SFO announced that it intended to prosecute BAE Systems for offences relating to overseas corruption. See SFO press release

On 29 January 2010, the SFO charged Count Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly with conspiracy to corrupt in connection with BAE's deals with eastern and central European governments including the Czech Republic, Hungary and Austria. In the course of these preliminary hearings, the SFO told the courts that "From 2002 onwards, BAE adopted and deployed corrupt practices to obtain lucrative contracts for jet fighters in central Europe." It was a "sophisticated and meticulously planned operation involving very senior BAE executives". See Observer, 7 February 2010. On 4 ebruary 2010, Mensdorff-Pouilly was granted bail of £1million.

On 5 February 2010, however, the SFO announced its plea bargain settlement with BAE. Under the SFO%u2019s proposed settlement, BAE would plead guilty in court to "accounting irregularities" in its 1999 sale of a radar system to Tanzania and would pay penalties of £30 million. The SFO would not bring prosecutions relating to alleged bribery and corruption in BAE%u2019s arms deals elsewhere, including in the Czech Republic, South Africa and Romania.

This settlement was announced in conjunction with a much larger settlement made by the US Department of Justice with BAE. Under this settlement, BAE admitted making false statements in 2000-2002 in relation to BAE's arms deals with Saudi Arabia and passing covert payments through the United States in regard to its arms deals in Central European countries. It will be fined $400 million (£256 million). Because it has not pleaded guilty to corruption charges, BAE can continue to bid for US military contracts.

Later on 5 February 2010, the Serious Fraud Office announced that it was withdrawing proceedings against Count Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly on the grounds that it was no longer in the public interest to continue.

CAAT and The Corner House sent a Letter Before Claim to SFO Director Richard Alderman on 12 February, and asked the Courts on 26 February 2010 for permission to apply for a judicial review of the settlement.

The groups contend that the proposed settlement is unlawful because the SFO did not follow the correct prosecution guidance (including its own guidance) on plea bargains.

They argue that the agreement does not reflect the seriousness and extent of BAE's alleged corruption and bribery offences, and does not provide the court with adequate sentencing powers.

The groups also hold that the SFO unlawfully concluded that the factors weighing against prosecuting BAE on bribery and corruption charges outweighed those in favour of prosecution.

Lawyers acting for the two groups have also requested a judicial review of the SFO%u2019s decision to discontinue its prosecution of Count Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly. The Corner House and CAAT argue that this decision was unlawful because the SFO failed to follow its own guidance on corporate prosecutions; failed to act in the public interest and the interests of justice; and because the decision was irrational.

Notes

1. Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) works for the reduction and ultimate abolition of the international arms trade together with progressive demilitarisation within arms producing countries. The The Corner House aims to support democratic and community movements for environmental and social justice through analysis, research and advocacy.

In December 2006 the SFO dropped its bribery and corruption investigations into BAE's arms sales to Saudi Arabia, following pressure from BAE and Saudi Arabia and a direct intervention from then Prime Minister Tony Blair. The decision was subject to severe criticism and prompted CAAT and The Corner House to launch a Judicial Review of the decision. In April 2008, the High Court ruled that the SFO Director had acted unlawfully by stopping the investigation; that judgment was subsequently overturned by the House of Lords in July 2008, which ruled that he had acted lawfully when faced with a threat to national security. For more details click here.

2. For a summary of investigations into BAE click here.

3. The Serious Fraud Office is a UK government department that investigates and prosecutes complex fraud.

4. BAE Systems is the world's fourth largest arms producer. It makes fighter aircraft, warships, tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery systems, missiles and munitions. Its foremost markets are Saudi Arabia and the United States. It has consistently denied any wrong-doing. More information: here.

5. A judicial review is a court proceeding in which a judge reviews the lawfulness of a decision or action made by a public body. Now that CAAT and The Corner House have lodged papers at the High Court requesting a judicial review, the Serious Fraud Office Director will submit his legal arguments and a witness statement arguing why the decision to offer a plea bargain settlement with BAE was lawful. A judge will then consider the papers from both sides and decide whether to grant or refuse permission for a full judicial review hearing.

Show your support - sign the statement here

Faisal al-Saadoon and Khalef Hussain Mufdhi, accused of murdering two soldiers, left at risk of unfair trial and execution in Iraq, European court finds

• Helen Pidd
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 2 March 2010 18.15 GMT
• Article history

 

The UK government was today condemned for violating the human rights of two Iraqis accused of murdering two captive British soldiers in 2003.

Faisal al-Saadoon and Khalef Hussain Mufdhi, Sunni Muslims and former officials of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party, have been detained for almost seven years. They are currently being held in the Rusafa prison near Baghdad.

The European court of human rights in Strasbourg unanimously found the pair were "at real risk of being subjected to an unfair trial followed by execution by hanging" in Iraq.

The finding reversed a decision made at the UK's highest court.

Saadoon and Mufdhi are accused of two of the most brutal killings of British personnel during the war.

On 23 March 2003, Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth and Sapper Luke Allsopp, both bomb disposal experts, were dragged from their vehicles during an ambush within days of the US-led invasion of Iraq.

They were taken to an intelligence base, shot and filmed as they lay dying surrounded by a baying mob. Their bodies were found in shallow graves a month later.

Saadoon, 57, and 59-year-old Mufdhi have been waging a long-running legal battle, arguing that the British army had been wrong to hand them over to the Iraqi authorities for trial in December 2008.

They claim the transfer put them at real risk of torture and death by hanging after the Iraqi national assembly reintroduced the death penalty in 2004.

The two were tried by an Iraqi court in 2009 and cleared of the charges, but remain in custody pending an appeal by the prosecutor.

The European court of human rights ruled that Saadoon and Mufdhi had been "subjected to mental suffering caused by the fear of execution amounting to inhuman treatment" and awarded them €40,000 (£36,330) jointly in costs.

The judgment said: "For the court, compliance with their obligations under article three of the convention [which prohibits torture and "inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment"] requires the government to seek to put an end to the applicants' suffering as soon as possible, by taking all possible steps to obtain an assurance from the Iraqi authorities that they will not be subjected to the death penalty."

Following the judgement, Tessa Gregory, of Public Interest Lawyers, which represented Saadoon and Mufdhi, said: "We call upon the UK government, in light of the severe criticisms made by the European court, to now do everything within its power to protect our clients from the death penalty and to seek their release so that they can, at long last, be reunited with their families.

"This case has been pursued for political purposes, and it is now time for the government to act."

The armed forces minister, Bill Rammell, said: "We are carefully considering the court's verdict.

"On 31 December 2008, we transferred to the Iraqi authorities, to face trial for war crimes, two Iraqis suspected of involvement in the murder of two British soldiers.

"At this point, we had no legal power to detain the suspects, and the court of appeal had unanimously ruled that they did not fall within the jurisdiction of the European convention on human rights.

"We transferred them having received credible assurances from the Iraqi government that they would be treated humanely in custody and we know that this has been the case.

"We have acted throughout in the interests of justice and in the interests of the families of the two murdered soldiers. We should all welcome the due legal process that is now being followed."

The Government is bowing to religious pressure and amending the Children Schools and Families Bill today to allow faith schools to teach about contraception and homosexuality in their own way. The National Secular Society's Executive Director Keith Porteous Wood opposes the amendment on the following grounds:

1. There is a greater, not lesser, need for objective sex education, for example on contraception and homosexuality, for children of parents with faith backgrounds - especially Catholic and minority faith backgrounds. They are more likely to have neglected sex education altogether because of their religious dogma.

2. The amendment is an infringement of children's human rights as it is likely to deny them objective information necessary for their future wellbeing.

3. It is cruel and damaging to teach gay children - or children who may become gay - (as religious bodies frequently do) that homosexuality is an "objective disorder" and a "strong tendency ordered towards an intrinsic moral evil.¹"

4. A major six-year study commissioned by the US Congress, released in 2007², has found that young people who took part in chastity programmes, much favoured by religious bodies, were just as likely to have sex as those who did not. Unfortunately those not receiving objective sex education are unlikely to take precautions, with devastating consequences for their future lives and those of their children.

5. Once more, the Government looks to be caving in to the demands of religious leaders and the result is that children are being betrayed, with potentially devastating effects on their future lives.

6. Many children of religious parents do not regard themselves as being religious and indeed many of the parents of children in these very many publicly funded religious schools are not of the faith of the school. They deserve better.

¹ Per a 1992 Vatican document

² http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2007/s1899734.htm

The Government has reneged on its commitment to ensuring all children will receive broad, balanced and objective sex and relationship education (SRE).

Ed Balls MP, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, this week tabled an amendment to the Government’s Children, Schools and Families Bill which in effect will provide an opt-out for religious schools when Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education, which includes SRE, becomes compulsory in schools from September 2011. The Government originally intended all governing bodies and head teachers to have regard to a set of "principles" which include statements about how PSHE should be taught. Such principles stated that PSHE should be taught in a way that endeavours to promote equality and encourages acceptance of diversity. However, the Government has now laid an amendment to this Bill which many fear would curtail the implementation of SRE and PSHE in religious schools. The new amendment states that the principles “are not to be read as preventing the governing body or head teacher of a school within subsection (7B) from causing or allowing PSHE to be taught in a way that reflects the school’s religious character.”

The Catholic Education Service (CES) was quick to claim the credit for the Government’s apparent U-turn. A statement on its website claimed the amendment was tabled following a period of extensive lobbying by the Catholic Education Service for England and Wales.

National Secular Society spokesperson Stephen Evans said, “It is disgraceful that the Government is seen to be willing to sacrifice the health and well being of children in order to satisfy the demands of a minority religious lobby. The Government has already agreed that the issues that Personal, Social, Health and Economic education covers are central to all children and young people’s well-being and to their healthy development as they grow up. It is therefore a betrayal of children’s rights for the Government to now say that children in religious schools can be denied the same entitlement to objective teaching on issues such as contraception, safe sex, sexuality and abortion as children in community schools.

“Only this week the Joint Committee on Human Rights welcomed the Bill saying it welcomed the Government's explicit acceptance that the teaching of sex and relationships in faith schools must present material that is accurate and balanced, must not present that faith's views as the only valid views, and must promote equality and diversity. However, the new amendment casts serious doubt on the Government’s willingness to ensure the rights of children in religious schools are protected from opt-outs demanded by self-interested religious groups.”

The Government’s amendment was also criticised by the Children's Rights Alliance for England. Carolyne Willow, national coordinator of the Alliance said, “This amendment was completely unnecessary as there is already provision in the Bill for PSHE to take into account different perspectives, including religious beliefs. It is absolutely vital that sex and relationships education funded by the State occurs within the context of commitment to equality and respect for diversity; anything less is discriminatory.”

In the Guardian, a spokesman from the Department for Children, Schools and Families dismissed the complaints. Faith schools would not be able to opt out of statutory SRE lessons when they came into effect in September 2011, he stressed.

"All maintained schools will be required to teach full programmes of study in line with the principles outlined in the bill, including promoting equality and encouraging acceptance of diversity.

"Schools with a religious character will be free to express their faith and reflect the ethos of their school, but what they cannot do is suggest that their views are the only ones."

This meant a Catholic school would be required to teach the facts about contraception, but would also be able to reflect the church's views on its use.

Read the JCHR report on the Children, Schools and Families Bill

Body scanners were introduced after an alleged attempt to blow up a plane

The use of airport body scanners in the UK may be unlawful, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has warned.

Scanners already in place at Heathrow and Manchester Airports may be breaking discrimination law as well as breaching passengers' rights to privacy, it said.

It has now written a letter to Transport Secretary Lord Adonis.

The government said security concerns meant scanners had been needed immediately, but it was carrying out an equalities impact assessment.

The scanners are being introduced in response to the alleged attempt to blow up an American plane on 25 December.

But the commission said it had "serious doubts" that the decision to roll them out in UK airports was legal.

It said one of its chief concerns was over how people would be selected for the scans.

'Vulnerable groups'

Its chairman, Trevor Phillips, said: "The right to life is the ultimate human right and we support the government's review of security policies.

Given the current security threat level, we believe it was essential to start introducing scanners immediately Department for Transport spokesperson

"State action like border checks, stop-and-search and full body scanning are undertaken for good reasons.

"But, without proper care, such policies can end up being applied in ways which do discriminate against vulnerable groups or harm good community relations."

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne MP agreed.

He said: "The government seems intent on pressing ahead with the use of body scanners without addressing any of the privacy concerns and safeguard issues raised by the Liberal Democrats and others.

"The commission is right to suggest that security measures cannot simply be introduced without due respect for the rule of law."

Code of practice

The commission has previously said scanners could breach an individual's right to privacy under the Human Rights Act.

It has also previously written to the home secretary to ask that he set out in detail the justification for bringing in the scanners, and clarify what safeguards will be put in place.

They produce "naked" images of passengers, and the commission then said it was concerned especially for the privacy of certain groups such as disabled people, the elderly, children and the transgendered community.

The Department for Transport said it had published a staff code of practice for the scanners.

A spokesperson said passengers who were randomly selected for screening would not be chosen because of any personal characteristics.

"Given the current security threat level, we believe it was essential to start introducing scanners immediately.

"We are currently carrying out a full equalities impact assessment on the code of practice, which will be published shortly when we begin a public consultation on these issues."

 

• Intelligence committee misled by MI5 evidence
• Demands for reform after appeal court revelations

• David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 15 February 2010 09.06 GMT
• Article history

Jonathan Evans, the director-general of MI5. Photograph: PA

It was in the middle of 2008 that Jonathan Evans, director general of MI5, delivered a bombshell confession to the previously compliant parliamentarians of the intelligence and security committee.

He told them, in strict secrecy as usual, that assurances of MI5 innocence previously accepted without demur by the politicians had in fact been false.

The committee, which was supposed to supervise MI5's policies, had already published a reassuring report on the basis of what it had been told. That report, based on testimony from Eliza Manningham-Buller, Evans's predecessor, informed the world that MI5 had been unaware of any ill-treatment dished out by its US allies to Binyam Mohamed.

The opposite was true. As the appeal court has now finally revealed, detailed briefings had been supplied at the time by Washington on the CIA's "new strategy" for softening up Mohamed and others, for which it demanded British help. This new American "war on terror" involved the use of prolonged sleep deprivation, shackling and threats that Mohamed would be "disappeared", applied to the point where his mental stability corroded and he apparently became suicidal.

These interrogation tactics, of systematic ill-treatment which might amount to torture, had supposedly been banned by Britain since 1972, when it came to light that the British army was using them on IRA suspects.

But far from denouncing or even criticising US behaviour, MI5 officers co-operated with it. The secret files, when they eventually emerged, revealed that an MI5 officer had travelled to Karachi to help with the interrogation of Mohammed. Other MI5 desk officers and "more senior" figures also knew the contents of the CIA files, according to judgments of the British high court. That these facts had been kept from the ISC was a demonstration of the committee's impotence. Critics say the ISC is a useless government poodle, and the Binyam Mohamed affair appears to strengthen their case.

Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie said yesterday: "The ISC is not … able to get to the truth. The chairman is a prime ministerial appointee. This has allowed a revolving door between chairmanship of the ISC and the government front bench. That door should be closed."

The MI5 head finally felt obliged to confess to the ISC in 2008 and hand over the documents, because disclosure orders obtained by Mohamed's lawyers and enforced by the courts had led to the discovery of 42 incriminating files.

All had originally been kept from the ISC, which, despite its supposed special access within Whitehall's "ring of secrecy", is powerless to compel disclosure of documents, even if its under-resourced members had any idea of what to ask for.

Public protests from the ISC about such impotence have been ignored by No 10 in the past. In this case, the ISC was forced to admit in 2009 that the "new information [which] had come to light about the Binyam Mohamed case … had been overlooked during the committee's original rendition inquiry".

No public explanation has been offered of why the files were originally suppressed. Nor has the public been told how and by whom they were eventually unearthed within the bowels of Thames House. These may be matters for any future judicial inquiry into a cover-up.

The anonymous MI5 officer who went to Karachi and subsequently gave evidence to the high court that nothing was known of US malpractice has been targeted as a potential criminal suspect. It has been announced that a police inquiry is being held into his behaviour. This has been used as a justification by ministers, MI5 and ISC itself to remain silent. But the investigation has produced no tangible results, more than 18 months later.

The ISC claimed in March 2009 to have conducted its own "detailed investigation" into the scandal, having been confronted with it, and to have sent a private letter to the prime minister as a result.

It managed to do this without interviewing any witness who alleged direct knowledge of British complicity in torture – neither campaigners such as Human Rights Watch, nor media investigators, nor any of the alleged victims themselves.

The ISC only saw witnesses in secret once again, from MI5, MI6 and the Foreign Office, and has failed to publish any of its purported findings.

Had it not been for the judges defying repeated heavy pressure from the executive and going public, British voters would have learnt little from the ISC's activities. The ISC has so far only provided them with false information in its 2007 report, followed by a lack of information in subsequent reports.

This is nothing new, critics say. Its heavily censored reports have long been derided as establishment whitewash.

Not appointed by parliament, gagged by the Official Secrets Act, and even forced to meet outside Westminster, the ISC's members are more emasculated even than conventional select committees. The chairmanship is usually awarded as a sop to a former government minister, currently Kim Howells. Downing St has enforced a 'convention' under which only its chair is allowed to give interviews.

The committee has had only had a tiny secretariat of half a dozen clerks, and no investigative capacity of its own.

In March last year Gordon Brown promised reform. He said: "We will … enshrine an enhanced scrutiny and public role for the ISC. This will lead to more parliamentary debate on security matters, public hearings … and … greater transparency over appointments to the committee."

But nothing was done. Brown also promised to publish fresh guidance to bar MI5 from colluding in torture. Last autumn, the ISC protested that no guidance had materialised. A draft was then sent to the committee, but nothing has yet been published. Similarly, the ISC's latest annual report is still sitting in Downing St, awaiting censorship.

Another parliamentary committee has been tougher. Last august, the joint committee on human rights concluded the UK government was "determined to avoid parliamentary scrutiny" and said an independent inquiry was the only way to restore public confidence.

How the ISC was misled

There was a secret session of the ISC on 23 November 2006 at the Cabinet Office. The then head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, pictured, testified about MI5's role in the US interrogation of ­Binyam Mohammed that took place under her predecessor, Stephen Lander.

A heavily censored ISC report published in July 2007 showed Manningham-Buller and her team had claimed to lack knowledge that Mohamed was being ill-treated. The ISC – chaired by former Northern Ireland secretary Paul Murphy – was told: "A member of the security service did interview [Mohamed] once for a period of approximately three hours while he was detained in Karachi in 2002." The interrogator, later known as Witness B, was "an experienced officer" who conducted the interview "in line with the services' guidance to staff on contact with detainees".

The ISC recorded: "The security service denies that the officer told [Mohamed] he would be tortured as he alleges … He did not observe any abuse and … no instances of abuse were mentioned by [Mohamed]."

Murphy's committee reported that MI5 had "lack of knowledge at the time of any possible consequences of US custody of detainees." That statement now appears to have been untrue.

The six key questions posed by Human Rights Watch to the government

1. What steps as a ­matter of policy does the UK ­government, ­including all ­intelligence and security agencies, take to ensure that torture and cruel, ­inhuman or ­degrading ­treatment or ­punishment are not used in any cases in which it has asked the ­Pakistani ­authorities for assistance or co-operation?

2. What does the UK government do when it learns that torture or ill-­treatment has ­occurred in a ­particular case?

3. What conditions has the UK ­government put on ­continuing ­co-operation and ­assistance with Pakistan in counter-terror and law ­enforcement activities?

4. Has the UK ­government ever ­conditioned ­continuing ­co-operation or assistance with Pakistan on an end to torture and other ill-treatment?

5. Has the UK ­government ever withdrawn ­cooperation in a ­particular case or cases ­because of ­torture or ill-treatment?

6. What is the policy and legal advice in force to ensure that UK officials and agents do not ­participate or ­acquiesce in, or are ­complicit in torture or ill-treatment?

Christian Tories rewrite party doctrine

By Chris Cook

Published: February 12 2010 17:23 | Last updated: February 12 2010 17:23

Tim Montgomerie, a committed Christian and founder of the ConservativeHome website, is seen as the voice of grassroots Tories

A Conservative MP was stage-whispering in the leathery, dark Pugin Room of the House of Commons late last year. With a view of the Thames, teacup in hand, he hissed at me: “They’ve campaigned to change the processes so that they can bus in their voters, stuffing the selection meetings with their people. They don’t outnumber us, but they can out-organise us. They’re taking over the party.”

“They” are evangelical Christians, and the MP was prompted to speak by a meeting a week earlier. The party had held an “open primary” (in which members of the public can vote) to choose a candidate to stand for a safe Tory seat – Congleton, Cheshire – in this year’s general election. The two leading names on the ballot were Matthew Hancock and Fiona Bruce. Both are well-known within Tory circles. Hancock is an economic adviser to the party, Bruce a solicitor who fought valiantly, if unsuccessfully, for a seat in the north-west in the 2005 general election. The main difference is religion: Hancock is secular, Bruce an evangelical Christian.

Bruce won comfortably, taking a majority of the 220 votes cast in the first round. But a rumour soon spread that most of her votes had come from members of the New Life church, a local evangelical congregation. Buses were alleged to have ferried 150 Christians from the church.

In truth, according to churchgoers and constituency officials alike, only between 40 and 60 of the people voting were parish regulars, and they made their own way to the meeting. Bruce had addressed the church shortly before the selection – but, then, all candidates had been welcome to do so.

Still, the Pugin Room MP continued: “You know, the Christians send e-mails to one another asking them to pray for them at selection meetings, but the point of the messages is to make sure that they all know who is standing where and when.”

As Conservatives grasp the real possibility of victory this year, some are asking what degree of power a few evangelical Christians – only 3 per cent of the party members, according to one poll – will wield. The answer will determine the shape and sturdiness of any Conservative government.

As wary as some Tories are of their evangelical brethren, their current opinion poll lead comes in large part on the back of an alliance between secular liberals and a small core of evangelical Christians. In December 1990, weeks after the internal party coup that toppled Margaret Thatcher, a group of young Christians at Exeter University founded the Conservative Christian Fellowship (CCF). “It was at a time when Tory MPs had appeared to abandon a moral case for conservatism and become narrowly economic,” says Tim Montgomerie, one of the founders. “We hoped an organised Christian group could reignite the party’s compassion.”

Two years later, when he left university, Montgomerie – the son of an army officer – joined the Bank of England. But away from work, he concentrated on running the CCF, and, in 1998, gave up his job to run it full time. The Tory party, meanwhile, was slumping into oblivion. It had been devastated in the 1997 election. Staff at Conservative Central Office (CCO) recall speculating about what politics would be like “after the Tories”.

CCO came up with “Listening to Britain”, an exercise to reconnect the party to voters. And as part of a deal with the party, in which he was given a desk and a telephone, Montgomerie started an offshoot, “Listening to Britain’s Churches”. He contacted 300 churches around the country to ask about their concerns. Through this, he realised that the political priorities of church leaders were “much more linked to poverty, debt and drugs than they were about sexuality or bioethics”. Montgomerie is staunchly anti-abortion, and had been influenced by US Christian conservativism, but he recognised that if Christian Tories were more interested in solving social problems than debating moral flashpoints, the party should respond.

Early on, most of Montgomerie’s important allies were not Christians. He met with Jonathan Sacks (now Lord Sacks), Britain’s chief rabbi, who helped line up £300,000 funding from Sir Stanley Kalms, a Tory donor. The only condition was that the organisation be non-denominational – and so Renewing One Nation was born, to run alongside the CCF. The new group largely recruited from the CCF and continued its policy work on poverty. Within the party, David Willetts, the Tories’ foremost intellectual and my former employer, became a helper despite his own agnosticism. The atheist Oliver Letwin, now the Tory head of policy, also offered support. And the Jewish Daniel Finkelstein, then head of party policy and now executive editor at The Times, backed the project, too. Of Montgomerie’s notable internal supporters, only one was Christian: David Lidington, an MP in the party’s higher echelons.

Montgomerie’s most important ally, however, was Iain Duncan Smith. Elected to the party leadership in 2001, the Roman Catholic was best known for his staunch Euroscepticism. But during a visit to the Easterhouse Estate in Glasgow in 2002, he became convinced of the need for social reform. Poverty moved up the agenda, and Montgomerie rose to become chief of staff.

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“No one wants to cast a vote that makes them feel selfish,” Montgomerie says. This attitude extended beyond poverty. As Duncan Smith’s right-hand man, Montgomerie also advocated a more liberal line on sexuality than most of his co-religionists would be comfortable with, recommending, for example, that the Tories vote for the abolition of “section 28”, a clause in the Local Government Act that forbade the “promotion” of homosexuality in schools. “[The legislation] was supposed to stop some of the odd things local authorities were giving kids,” he says. But many people saw it as homophobic in its singling out of gay-related material. Montgomerie agreed. “They were giving kids all sorts of objectionable things. I thought it was absolutely wrong to pick on gay people.”

The social conscience at the top of the party did not last long. Duncan Smith was ousted in 2003 and replaced by Michael Howard. Though Howard had promised to continue the focus on social policy, leading from “the centre”, the party tacked to the right and poverty became a backwater issue. Supplanted, Duncan Smith decided to carve out a new role. With Montgomerie and Philippa Stroud, another Christian activist, he set up the Centre for Social Justice – a successor to Renewing One Nation. While secular in its arguments, the CSJ was Christian in tone and hiring.

In 2005, Howard resigned the leadership after another general-election drubbing for the Tories. A leadership election followed that turned into a contest between David Cameron, known as a modernising liberal, and David Davis, the shadow home secretary and a “security Tory”. Neither contender initially had social conservatives in the bag. Cameron, however, won over suspicious rightwingers with Eurosceptic pledges and a promise to continue the work on social policy that had begun under Duncan Smith – endorsing an early proposal by the CSJ to introduce an income tax break to support marriage.

Christians were a small part of the coalition that won Cameron the leadership battle, but they became crucial to him in office. His mission was to “decontaminate” the Tory party’s “devil take the hindmost” image. Along with environmentalism, poverty became one of his big themes. But the older right-of-centre think-tanks rarely looked at welfare – only the CSJ devoted resources to it. In the words of one research department official, when it came to starting the push on social deprivation, “we had no support at all. Our family and welfare policy was all outsourced to the CSJ. Oh, and Frank Field [a prominent Christian Labour party MP].”

Soon after Cameron’s election, Duncan Smith was invited to write a series of reports on poverty as part of the party’s policy review. And while some at the CSJ were concerned about losing their independence, it was worth what they won: relevance. Two years after being exiled by Michael Howard, a small group of Christian Tories was defining the party’s social policy. Today, the CSJ says it has crafted a full 70 Conservative policies.

Among the secular members of the party machine, there is unease about that sort of influence. The use of the CSJ’s research, in particular, causes concern. One official – who, like all party staff I spoke to, refused to go on the record – said: “Their hearts are in the right place, but loads of their stuff is ropey. They just seem to make up statistics or use dodgy assumptions.” The think-tank’s support for subsidising marriage through the tax system is a particular bugbear. Another official said: “The CSJ claims that there is evidence marriage helps the poor. But you have to chase down a jungle of references to find anything serious. It’s mostly rubbish that doesn’t overcome the self-selection problem [that couples who choose marriage are more likely to have qualities that make it easier to stay together and be good parents]. We have repeated some wholly indefensible claims.” The CSJ stands by those assertions. A spokesman said that “it is not simply a matter of selection. Regardless of socio-economic background, cohabiting couples are at least twice as likely to break up as their married counterparts and new research has revealed that 97 per cent of intact families with children aged 15 are married. To dismiss marriage as irrelevant is to ignore the evidence: children need stable, two-parent families and in the vast majority of cases, this means marriage.”

Cameron’s public position on tax and marriage has been undermined by murmuring from party apparatchiks, some of whom insist the marriage support proposal will never be implemented. As one adviser put it: “Will we really spend billions of pounds subsidising middle-class women to stay out of work if unemployment is rising? Of course not.” This whispering campaign meant that when Cameron seemed to shift his position on marriage last month, the social conservatives and the rightwing press had every reason to think the worst. But the party scrambled to reassure them. The alliance between social conservatives and the party’s metropolitan leadership has required tending; Cameron will not, at least ahead of the election, allow it to fail.

The tensions within the party, however, run deeper than concern over a few pieces of disputed research or a single policy. Last year, Samantha Callan, who produced the CSJ’s policy review papers, took up a post in the Tory internal policy unit. There, she produced a position paper on the “commercialisation” of childhood, in which she proposed a tough line on sexualisation of young girls. The government, she said, should “extend the rules on teenage magazines and give them a statutory underpinning by applying them to all magazines with a significant readership of under-18s”. The vague proposal could be interpreted as advocating government censorship, and received a frosty reception from the largely secular staff of Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ), as CCO is now known. Callan endured a number of bitter arguments with party colleagues about a long-mooted proposal to abolish the formal distinction between the UK’s current same-sex marriages – civil partnerships – and heterosexual civil weddings. After only 10 months within CCHQ, she left – frozen out by a Tory apparat that is overwhelmingly liberal, particularly on sexual mores and civil liberties. This division may be a harbinger of things to come.

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That is not to say the Christians will be completely disappointed by a Cameron government. Even if they lose all their fights with the party machine, on issues where CCHQ has no say, such as abortion, traditionally a “free vote” topic, policy will change. FT research, looking at polls of parliamentary candidates and the existing stock of MPs’ voting records, suggests that a Tory government elected with a single-digit majority would probably have enough support in the House of Commons to tighten abortion laws. Senior Tories expect that the cut-off dates for abortions under ordinary circumstances will be reduced from 24 weeks after conception to 20. This is not an indicator of growing religiosity among the Conservative party, nor renewed pro-life fervour. Rather, it is a herd effect. A liberal Tory adviser described it, tetchily, as “rightwing political correctness”. “They think it goes with the package: pro-nuclear power, pro-nuclear weapons, pro-army, pro-life.”

While the votes may come from secular Tories, the ringleaders of any abortion-tightening attempt will be Christians. In 2008, when parliament was debating embryology, Nadine Dorries, a high-profile backbench Tory MP, led the charge against abortion – and says she is informed by her Christianity (though “if you mention God in an argument in the UK, you lose,” she says). One leading anti-abortion activist noted that behind the scenes the Christian Medical Fellowship and the Lawyers Christian Fellowship were “absolutely indispensable. They did most of the heavy lifting on research. But we could never acknowledge their role. Never. People would never take us seriously again.” (Dorries says another reason she avoids talking about faith in parliament is out of fear it will set a precedent by which Muslim MPs could express – and impose – theirs. “There is no place for sharia law in Britain and as politicians we have to be aware and vigilant to ensure that we don’t ease or facilitate its acceptance,” she says.)

As well as tightening the abortion laws, Dorries expects to launch an attack on the Embryology Act. In parliament, she compared the current law’s provisions to (false) claims about Soviet research programmes: “Stalin told his top scientist, Ilya Ivanov, to turn his skills to breeding an ultimate soldier by crossing human beings with apes … The Department of Health says that what we do today will never be abused or subject to experimentation in the future, but I would not be so sure …” In contrast to the abortion debate, however, on embryology Dorries and other Christian Tories will fail. As Boris Johnson put it to MPs as they went through the lobbies, it’s a vote “for science or against science” and fewer MPs are willing to obstruct medical research than tighten abortion restrictions.

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At last year’s party conference, Cameron delivered an angry riff on the UK’s poverty trap – and received a standing ovation for it. Montgomerie says it brought tears to his eyes. After all, it was the culmination of two decades of largely behind-the-scenes work. Now the 39-year-old is a more public figure. Five years ago, he set up the website ConservativeHome. Thanks to its strong following, he is seen as the voice of the conservative grassroots. Having built a research machine to craft the party’s policies on poverty, he now has a weapon to force the party to follow through. If Cameron does renege on his tax and marriage promises, for example, Montgomerie will make his views heard.

During the election campaign, Montgomerie will behave himself. He has made little of recent Tory gaffes and has called for activists to remain loyal. But, in the past, he has proved willing to stand up to CCHQ. In 2005, he successfully opposed plans to strip party activists of their votes in leadership elections; in 2007, he was a driver of a political argument about grammar schools that helped lose the party its opinion poll lead. Individual MPs are worried. Andrew MacKay, who was forced to stand down in the expenses row, credits Montgomerie for his scalp. Another MP says of his vote on abortion laws: “I don’t want to be just a constituency MP, answering letters. I want to be a minister. And the last thing I want is for ConservativeHome to take against me because I dared to vote against the approved Tim Montgomerie line.”

The party machine is worried, too. One central office adviser said that “Tim’s name is probably mentioned more [inside the party headquarters] than any other single outside observer, pressure group or journalist”. (A shadow cabinet minister attempted to play down his influence: “Well, I wouldn’t put Tim in the inner circle. He’s probably not even in the top 10 most important people in the Tory party.”)

In the past decade, Montgomerie has worked to build a broad, inclusive conservativism. In the coming decade, he could play a role in splitting the party. As he said last year, about Europe, where Cameron is planning a purely cosmetic Eurosceptic policy: “If Britain’s relationship with the [European Union] is fundamentally the same after five years of Conservative government, the internal divisions that ended the last Tory period in government will look like a tea party in comparison.”

And while poverty brought Montgomerie and Cameron together, another “decontaminating” element of the modern Tory platform may yet divide them: climate change. Montgomerie has become increasingly vocal in his scepticism. As he said just two months ago: “It is an issue that can split conservative parties around the world.” Cameroons, take note.

Chris Cook is a leader writer for the FT