UN report condemns Britain over torture cases.

The UN have released a new report which is highly critical of the UK for breaching basic human rights and for "trying to conceal illegal acts" in the war on terror.

The report is sharply critical of British co-operation in the transfer of detainees to places where they are likely to be tortured as part of the US rendition programme. It accuses British ­intelligence officers of interviewing detainees held ­incommunicado in Pakistan in ­"so-called safe houses where they were being tortured".

It adds that Britain, and a number of other countries, sent interrogators to Guantánamo Bay in a further example of what "can be reasonably understood as implicitly condoning" torture and ill-treatment. It said the US was able to create its system for moving terror suspects around foreign jails only with the support of its allies.

Some individuals faced "prolonged and secret detention" and practices that breached bans on torture and other forms of ill-treatment, the report says.

The accusation strikes me as essentially true. The story of Binyam Mohamed confirms that we requested information that we wanted to know from a prisoner who we knew was being held in conditions which suggested that he might be being tortured. And yet, we did not question his captors or raise any objections to the conditions in which he was being held, we simply supplied our list of things that we would wish him to be asked.

And this is especially shocking as, in the case of Binyam Mohamed, we were dealing with a British resident. Yet, we did not campaign for his release. We, if Mohamed is to be believed, conspired with his captors.

That is truly shocking.

While the practice of extraordinary rendition was put in place by the US, it was only possible through collaboration from other countries, the report says. It identifies the UK, with ­Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, ­Georgia, Indonesia, Kenya, Macedonia and Pakistan, as countries that provided "intelligence or have conducted the initial seizure of an individual before he was transferred to (mostly unacknowledged) detention centres in Afghanistan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Thailand, Uzbekistan … or to one of the CIA covert detention centres, often referred to as 'black sites'".

The report continues: "The active or passive participation by states in the interrogation of persons held by another state constitutes an internationally wrongful act if the state knew or ought to have known that the person was facing a real risk of torture or other prohibited treatment."

As George Bush slinks away from power the light is finally going to be shone on the illegal acts in which he engaged. It will make very unpleasant reading.

But for country's like the UK - whose leaders bent over backwards to accommodate him - there will be an especial shame.

We, it would appear, facilitated this man as he ripped up international law; we actually assisted him. His wish to avoid another attack on the US was understandable, even commendable. But that wish appears to have led him to believe that anything he did in it's pursuit was more important than the ideals which he was defending.

And the UN are right to state that he could not have done this without the co-operation of other nations.

9-11 was a shocking act, but it's actually more shocking to realise that so many governments were willing to reject all that defines us as civilised in order to stop the people who permeated that dreadful attack.

We, literally, turned ourselves into torturers, whether we did the torture ourselves or whether we simply turned a blind eye as it was done.

That's shocking and shameful.

And the more reports that come out, from the UN and other places, the more impossible it will be for the people who facilitated such practices to avoid facing the consequences under international law.

All of this was done in our name. Which means we will share partial responsibility if these deeds go unpunished.

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Tags: UK, US, torture, Guantanamo Bay, Bush, Blair, Brown