Former SAS man condemns British role in torture tactics
A former SAS man, who left the British Army complaining of the "illegal" tactics of US troops, has condemned the British role in the arrest of Afghan and Iraqi men who he says are rendered to prisons where they face torture.
While ministers had stated their wish that the Guantánamo Bay camp should be closed, they had been silent over prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said. He added: "These secretive prisons are part of a global network in which individuals face torture and are held indefinitely without charge. All of this is in direct contravention of the Geneva conventions, international law and the UN convention against torture."
Referring to the government's admission last week that two US rendition flights containing terror suspects had landed at the British territory of Diego Garcia, Griffin said the use of British territory and airspace "pales into insignificance in light of the fact that it has been British soldiers detaining the victims of extraordinary rendition in the first place".
He told a Stop the War Coalition press conference in London that since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, UK special forces had operated within a joint US-UK taskforce that had been responsible for the detention of "hundreds if not thousands of individuals in Afghanistan and Iraq". The primary mission of the taskforce in Iraq was to kill or capture "high-value targets". However, the taskforce often detained non-combatants.
When Miliband talks of his horror at discovering that two rendition flights had landed at Diego Garcia, one has to wonder what planet he is living on. We are working hand in hand with the Americans. We are, at this moment, their partner in crime. It is almost impossible to believe that we are not operating a "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
Just as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch long ago voiced their concerns that the US was torturing prisoners, the British government are much better placed than either of those organisations to actually know what is taking place, and any ignorance on our part must be willful.
For example, Ben Griffin - the former SAS man at the centre of this story - claims that he went into a war zone unaware of the Geneva Conventions or the UN Convention on Torture.
"It is only since I have left the army [and] I have read the Geneva Convention and the UN Convention on Torture, that I realised that we have broken so many of these conventions and treaties in Iraq."It seems extraordinary to me that soldiers would not be briefed on their requirements under these conventions before they entered a war zone, but Griffin claims that he knew nothing of this until after he left the army.
He said three fellow soldiers had told him on separate occasions that they had witnessed the interrogation of two detainees in Iraq using "partial drowning and an electric cattle prod". Ministers must have been briefed on the activities of the taskforce and should be charged with breach of conventions protecting individuals from torture, he added.It is impossible to believe that the British government are not aware of these events, especially if anecdotal evidence like this is surfacing so publicly. We are the silent partners in this uneven relationship with the US and their sins are also our sins. After all, under law, silence equals consent.
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