Letter to the Parliamentary Relations
and Devolution Team, Foreign and Commonwealth Office from the
Second Clerk of the Committee
The Foreign Secretary promised the Committee
a note in response to various questions raised during the evidence
session on 13 December. I would be grateful for a reply by 16
January.
1. At Q30 in the transcript, Mr Keetch asked
whether British Overseas Territories including Diego Garcia and
RAF Akrotiri in the Sovereign Base Areas of Cyprus had been used
for the purposes of rendition of suspects by the USA.
2. At Q42 the Foreign Secretary undertook
to offer a reply to Sir John Stanley's question about whether
Mr Benyam Mohammed Al Habashi was handed over deliberately by
the British intelligence services to the CIA in Pakistan.
3. At Q51 Mr Straw offered to send the Committee
a note on "unfair treatment, less than torture" and
the way in which suspects are treated in the UK, in answer to
a question from the Chairman on whether certain interrogation
techniques permitted in the USA would fall within UK definitions
of torture.
4. At Q90 Mr Illsley asked whether there
had been any progress regarding the Bulgarian nurses imprisoned
in Libya.
The Chairman has also asked for replies to a
number of questions which were not reached in the session:
The EU is fielding an increasing number of missions
abroad, with varying functions. Is this a deliberate trend and
are there any further such missions on the way?
Is the Rafah monitoring mission a model which
the EU hopes to replicate, if all goes well?
Does the EU have any plans to intensify relations
with India, given its growing importance on the global stage?
Sarah Ioannou
Second Clerk of the Committee
19 December 2005
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