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The UK and US in particular must stop treating security or terrorism cases as too sensitive for publication
The government has made clear it was hugely relieved when it heard that the European court of human rights backed the extradition to the US of Abu Hamza, Babar Ahmad and three other men accused of terrorism-related offences.
This is hardly surprising. It should now be easier in future for the UK to send suspects to the US without British or European judges getting in the way. It might also relieve the pressure on the government from MPs to reopen the controversial 2003 extradition treaty with the US. Under the terms of the treaty, negotiated by the Blair government, it is easier to extradite a British citizen to the US than vice versa.
The coalition has shown that it is as craven as its predecessor on matters concerning Britain's closest ally. How would Washington have responded had Strasbourg blocked the extradition of the five men on the grounds their human rights would be violated? The British government could not bear to think, judging by its willingness to appease the US on matters relating to security and intelligence. Nowhere has this been made so clearly than in its plan to prevent information held by MI5, MI6, and GCHQ from ever being disclosed in court.
Ministers say their plan for secret courts is designed to protect Britain's national security, by ensuring that the US will continue its special intelligence-sharing relationship with Britain. Yet if the government gets its way, evidence of wrongdoing, even connivance in torture, by Britain's security and intelligence agencies, and what ministers knew about it, would in future never see the light of day.
Evidence relating to the brutal treatment by the CIA of British citizens and residents rendered to Guantánamo Bay, emerged in court thanks to some conscientious British judges. Ministers, MI5, and MI6 protest that torture is abhorrent and they would have nothing to do with it. Yet when evidence threatened to be disclosed in court revealing that the US told MI5 and MI6 that Binyam Mohamed and other British citizens and residents secretly rendered to Guantánamo Bay had been brutally treated, ministers were the first to insist the evidence must be withheld.
If the evidence was disclosed, they warned, the US, and the CIA in particular, would stop sharing intelligence with Britain.
The British judges were not impressed. "The treatment to which Mr Mohamed was subjected could never properly be described in a democracy as 'a secret' or an 'intelligence secret' or 'a summary of classified intelligence'," they said. They added: "It was impossible to believe that President Obama would take action against the United Kingdom," if the summary of CIA material was disclosed. Publication was "necessary to uphold the rule of law and democratic accountability", the judges continued.
Would Obama really "curtail the supply of information to the United States' oldest ally when what was put into the public domain was not intelligence?" they asked rhetorically. There was no rational basis, they said, for claims made by the then foreign secretary David Miliband and US secretary of state Hillary Clinton that disclosure would affect the supply of US intelligence to the UK and put British lives at risk.
Parliament's human rights committee observed last week that the US was suffering from a "misperception" that British courts could not stop the disclosure of information on genuine national security grounds.
In its ruling, the European court of human rights suggests the problems are mutual, that the US is not the only villain. The Strasbourg judges made the point that conditions in some European jails are worse than the "Supermax" jail in Colorado where the five men are expected to be incarcerated in solitary confinement. In the US they will at least face trial. In Britain, Babar Ahmad has been held for nearly eight years without one.
The Strasbourg ruling brings to mind documents disclosed in British courts which revealed how Jack Straw, then foreign secretary, advised his officials in 2002 that sending British nationals seized by US forces to Guantanamo Bay was the "best way to meet our counter-terrorism objective". He rejected the alternative of repatriation to the UK. He added: "It is for the US authorities to determine the details of how these prisoners should be handled. They have told us they would be treated humanely."
The Strasbourg ruling should be a wake-up call, to put in place as a matter of urgency an open, fair, and speedy, system of justice in the UK, the rest of Europe, and the US. And stop treating such claims relating to "security" or "terror" as so dangerous they need to be wrapped up and protected by special courts, and, as far as both the UK and US governments are concerned, treated with such deference.
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