Full text of letter to Jack Straw

Liberty, the human rights organisation, today sent this letter to the Chief Constables of eleven police forces in the UK and to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary:

"You will be aware from articles published in the Guardian and other newspapers, that there is very real suspicion that airports and military airbases in the United Kingdom are being used by the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency ("CIA"), in connection with the practice referred to as 'extraordinary rendition'.

"Extraordinary rendition involves CIA agents and operatives delivering people from one country outside the United States of America to the state authorities in a third country. It is strongly believed that the CIA engages in the practice in the full knowledge, indeed expectation, that the people it transports will be subjected to torture in the country to which they are delivered.

"If that is the case, the CIA agents and operatives are clearly complicit in any acts of torture inflicted on the people it has transported in the third countries to which it has delivered them.

"Further, we submit that people transported through the United Kingdom as part of the practice of extraordinary rendition are subjected to torture within the United Kingdom. Detaining a person where that person is aware that the purpose of the detention is to bring them to a place where they will be subjected to physical torture must itself be torture, as it will undoubtedly inflict severe mental suffering on the person detained.

"Domestic criminal law recognises that torture can be mental as well as physical (section 134(3) Criminal Justice Act 1988). The situation is analogous to the 'death row phenomenon' considered by the European Court of Human Rights in Soering v UK (1989) 11 EHRR 439, where the Court found that the mental anguish experienced by someone sentenced to death in anticipating the violence that would be done to them, breaches Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

"The practice of extraordinary rendition may constitute torture simply on the basis that it involves or results in a person being detained at a secret location beyond the reach of family and lawyers.

"The United Nations’ Human Rights Committee in its decision on the application of El-Megreisi (CCPR/C/50/D/440/1990) held that detaining a person incommunicado for a prolonged period in an unknown location amounted to torture in breach of Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

"The United Kingdom Government has committed itself to prevent and combat torture through its ratification of a number of international instruments. These include:

1. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

2. The Convention against Torture

3. The European Convention on Human Rights

"Focusing particularly on the European Convention given it status in domestic law, may I remind you that Article 1 requires the parties to it to 'secure to everyone within their jurisdiction' the substantive rights protected by the Convention.

"Article 3 prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment. The prohibition is absolute. Article 3 also imposes obligations on states to prevent torture and to investigate arguable breaches of the Article.

"In Chahal v UK (1996) 23 EHRR 413 the European Court of Human Rights held that a state would breach Article 3 if it expelled a person to a country where they face a real risk of being subjected to torture.

"Liberty is of the view that the United Kingdom Government is obliged by the European Convention and the other instruments mentioned above, not only to prevent torture and to investigate allegations of torture within the UK, but also to prevent people within its territory from being removed by third parties to other countries where there is a substantial risk that they will be subjected to torture and to investigate credible evidence that this has happened.

"I am therefore writing to you to request:

1. that you require the Government of the United States of America to declare whether it or its agents have used British airports or military airbases for the purposes of extraordinary rendition;

2. that you ensure that appropriate steps are undertaken to investigate whether British airports or military airbases have been used for this purpose; and

3. that you seek an assurance from the United States’ Government that neither it not its agents will in future use British airports or military airbases for the purpose of extraordinary rendition and that no flights for this purpose will pass through British airspace.

"I would be grateful if you could confirm within 14 days of the date of this letter that you will undertake these steps.

Shami Chakrabarti,

Director."