MI5: Outsourcing torture to foreign climes

By Gideon Swift | Published: May 27, 2009

MI5

In today’s Guardian, Ian Cobain tells the disturbing story of Jamil Rahman, a British citizen, raised in south Wales. His claims of abuse in Bangladeshi custody while British intelligence officers were in the same building add another location to an expanding list of countries in which the British intelligence services are accused of being involved in the use of torture. It also provide the clearest indication yet of direct British involvement in interrogations in other countries.

According to Rahman, whose lawyers believe they have enough evidence to start civil proceedings against home secretary Jacqui Smith, two masked men of European origin were present – and appeared to be directing events – when he was seized from the home of his Bangladeshi wife on 1 December 2005 and taken to a cell in an office of the Bangladeshi intelligence services, where he was held for three weeks. Rahman said he was “stripped, beaten and told that his wife would be raped and murdered and her body burned” and made to record a number of false confessions, including a statement that he had masterminded the terrorist attacks in London on 7 July 2005.

What makes Rahman’s claims particularly disturbing are his reports about the behaviour of two MI5 agents, who, he said, responded to his complaints that he had been tortured and had made false confessions, by saying, “They haven’t done a very good job on you,” and adding, “That’s good, you’ve learned your lesson,” when interrogations resumed after further abuse.