Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from Andrew Tyrie MP
ORAL EVIDENCE
SESSION ON
IRAQ AND
AFGHANISTAN ON
28 OCTOBER 2008
I am writing further to your Committee's announcement
of an oral evidence session with the Secretaries of State for
Defence and Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, about the Government's
policy on Iraq and Afghanistan.
In a letter to the Defence Committee on 15 May
2008 I set out a number of questions which deserve an answer.
I hope that this hearing might be an opportunity for you to ask
them. They are:
— in which countries, and in which
detention facilities, have people captured by British Forces during
the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and transferred into the
custody of US, Afghan, or Iraqi authorities, subsequently been
held;
— have sufficient follow-up efforts
been made to check that individuals transferred into the custody
of US, Afghan, or Iraqi authorities were not mistreated in breach
of the UK's legal obligations on this issue; and
— are the arrangements currently in
place to ensure the proper treatment of people transferred into
the custody of US, Afghan, or Iraqi authorities, adequate?
In addition, at least two questions arise from
Ben Griffin's specific allegations of inadequate treatment of
detainees captured by UK Forces. They are:
— has there ever been a formal or informal
policy that UK Forces operating within the joint task force referred
to by Mr Griffin, would detain or capture individuals but not
arrest them. If so, what is the purpose of that policy; and
— have the allegations made by Mr Griffin,[163]
a former member of UKSF, been properly investigated?
I attach my letter to the Defence Committee
of 15 May 2008,[164]
and a note setting out the background to these later questions.
I have also written to the Chairman of the Defence
Committee, Rt Hon James Arbuthnot MP, on this issue. I am placing
this letter in the public domain.
27 October 2008
Annex
NOTE TO
THE FOREIGN
AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
ON DETAINEE
TRANSFERS BY
UK FORCES
I am concerned that the arrangements in place
to ensure the proper treatment of detainees captured by UK Forces,
and subsequently handed over to US, Iraqi, or Afghan forces, may
be inadequate.
On 29 September 2008 I published a Legal Opinion
on this issue, prepared by Michael Fordham QC and Tom Hickman,
barristers at Blackstone Chambers specialising in human rights
law. The Opinion makes clear that assurances provided by another
state, that an individual handed over by UK forces would not be
mistreated, would not absolve the UK government of the obligation
to examine whether the assurances provide a sufficient guarantee
that the individual will be protected against the risk of ill-treatment.
Importantly, the Legal Opinion highlights "specific concerns
about the legality of the UK having accepted such assurances"
from the US. I have attached the Legal Opinion.
Your Committee addressed this issue in its Human
Rights Report 2007, and concluded that: "the UK can no longer
rely on US assurances that it does not use torture, and we recommend
that the Government does not rely on such assurances in the future".[165]
This conclusion also has important implications for the handing
over of detainees to US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
163 Statement of Mr Ben Griffin, 25 February 2008,
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=533.Back
164
Not published. Back
165
Foreign Affairs Committee, Ninth Report of Session 2007-08, Human
Rights Annual Report 2007, HC 533, para 53 Back
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