UK Commons committee deplores ‘false’ US assurances on Diego Garcia renditions News
UK Commons committee deplores ‘false’ US assurances on Diego Garcia renditions

[JURIST] The UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee [official website] Sunday called "deplorable" what it termed "false US assurances" about rendition flights through the UK Indian Ocean territory of Diego Garcia and said the "failure of the United States Administration to tell the truth resulted in the UK Government inadvertently misleading" the committee and the House of Commons about US operations on a military base [official website] located on the island. In a new report [text] it said it would conduct a further investigation of UK supervision of US activities on Diego Garcia, including all flights and ships serviced there. In February UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Miliband said that two US planes landed on Diego Garcia in 2002 to refuel during extraordinary rendition flights [JURIST report]. Miliband apologized [text] for previously denying that such stops had been made. His statement followed an admission [text] by US CIA Director Michael Hayden, who said the information on the renditions to Guantanamo Bay and Morocco was discovered in late 2007 after the CIA reviewed records on the renditions. AP has more.

Lawyers for Reprieve [advocacy website], a UK legal charity representing some of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, alleged [report, PDF] last year that UK overseas territories have been used "to support illegal interstate transfer, enforced disappearance and torture in the context of the 'war on terror'" and urged UK lawmakers to question US and UK officials about the allegations. In 2005, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak said there had been allegations that the US was secretly detaining prisoners on military vessels [JURIST report] at the Diego Garcia naval base.

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