International/Local News
UK spies won’t face criminal charges for torture
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LONDON—Agents working for Britain’s spy agencies won’t face criminal charges over their alleged complicity in the mistreatment of former Guantanamo detainees, the country’s top prosecutor said Thursday.
They may, however, still face civil action from victims who say the British government passed on information about them to their foreign captors accused in their mistreatment. None of the British agents were accused of directly torturing or mistreating detainees.
Prosecutors have been investigating allegations of ill treatment of detainees who eventually were sent to the U.S. prison in Guantanamo, Cuba. Most of the torture allegations come from terror suspects who were either initially held in Pakistan and Afghanistan, or sent to other countries such as Morocco for interrogation.
Police and the Crown Prosecution Service said if more evidence came to light, criminal investigations could be reopened.
A separate inquiry into British complicity in torture, intelligence sharing and the extraordinary rendition of terror suspects is set to begin now that the police and prosecutors have said there is insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges.
Britain has already made payouts to 16 former detainees at Guantanamo. Among those alleged to have been part of the settlements were Binyam Mohamed, Bishar Al Rawi, Jamil El Banna, Richard Belmar, Omar Deghayes, Moazzam Begg and Martin Mubanga.
More than 300 British journalists stand accused of illegally obtaining information
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BRITAIN’S newspaper industry failed to take up an offer to view evidence that more than 300 journalists had been involved in illegally accessing information, according to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Christopher Graham, the Commissioner, invited editors to visit his offices in September 2009 to see information about possible criminal acts by their staff, contained in confidential files from an investigation known as “Operation Motorman”.
No newspaper took up the invitation until early last year, when one unnamed publication got in touch with the ICO. Several more newspapers asked to see the files last summer after the Government had announced a public inquiry into malpractice by the press.
The Motorman files named 305 journalists who had commissioned Steve Whittamore, a private investigator, to obtain information including criminal records, mobile phone numbers and “friends and family” numbers. Many of the requests could be fulfilled only by illegally accessing databases, such as the police national computer and DVLA records.
Whittamore pleaded guilty in 2005 to illegally accessing data and trading information with the media.
Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner at the time of the case, told the Leveson inquiry last month that the ICO had been advised that it would be too expensive to prosecute the journalists involved. The journalists could also have tried to use a public interest defence. However, Mr Thomas told the inquiry that the reporters were generally pursuing “celebrity tittle-tattle” rather than genuine investigative journalism.
Mr Graham, who replaced Mr Thomas in June 2009, told the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee in September that year that he was willing to “share with a properly authorised editorial figure in a newspaper group the names on the list”. The ICO believes that newspapers ignored the offer because they were more interested in campaigning against tougher sentences for blagging – obtaining personal data without the consent of its owner – than identifying staff who may have been involved in criminal acts.
The ICO statement conflicts with evidence given to the Leveson inquiry yesterday by a lawyer for Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail. Liz Hartley said that the ICO had not made evidence from the Motorman files available until last July.
Associated sent two executives and two lawyers to inspect the files in August. The company was by far Mr Whittamore’s biggest customer. The ICO published a table in 2006 showing that 58 Daily Mail journalists had made 952 requests for information. Another 33 Mail on Sunday journalists made 266 requests.
News International, publisher of The Times, was also a significant customer. The News of the World, which closed in July, made 228 requests via 23 journalists. The table shows that a single journalist for The Times made two requests.
BBC wins legal battle to interview terror suspect
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LONDON—Britain’s Justice Department was wrong to ban the BBC from filming an interview with a terror suspect held for seven years without trial, judges ruled Wednesday.
The broadcaster said it wanted to film an interview with Babar Ahmad in prison to cover public interest issues, including the psychological and physical impact of prolonged detention without trial.
Ahmad, 38, has been detained in Britain since 2004 on a U.S. warrant. He is accused of running websites used to raise money for terrorists. He has not faced charges in Britain and has been held without charge for the longest period of any British citizen detained since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
In December, lawyers for Justice Secretary Ken Clarke defended his refusal to grant the BBC request, saying the general policy was to block such interviews with prisoners.
The lawyers argued that filming was not necessary to inform the public about Ahmad’s story, and that granting the request would set a precedent for other interviews. It also risked causing distress and anger to victims of terrorism, they said.
But on Wednesday, two High Court judges sided with the BBC, ruling that Ahmad’s case was exceptional and that the interview ban was a “disproportionate interference” with the right to freedom of expression.
Lawyers for the BBC and Ahmad had argued that a televised interview would allow the public to assess his credibility and show the impact of prolonged incarceration.
“He has aged far more than the number of years that have passed since he was first detained,” said Phillippa Kaufmann, who represented Ahmad. “This is what written communications cannot adequately convey.”
Ahmad, a British Muslim, is awaiting the outcome of a European court hearing on his extradition to the U.S. He is accused in the U.S. of supporting al-Qaida, Taliban and Chechen militants between 1998 and 2003 by operating a website that raised funds for terrorism and provided instructions on carrying out attacks. He has denied any wrongdoing.
The Ministry of Justice said it accepted Wednesday’s ruling, but cautioned that the case was an exception to the rule and should not be seen as a precedent for other cases.
It also blamed lengthy backlogs at the European Court of Human Rights for the delay in the decision on Ahmad’s extradition to the U.S., saying it was unacceptable and undermined the Strasbourg court’s authority.
Mexico sends 70 squatters back home to Guatemala
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MEXICO CITY—Mexican immigration officials say they have returned 70 Guatemalan squatters to their home country.
The Guatemalans had been living in tents on a Mexican communal farm near the border since August, after being evicted from a squatters camp in a Guatemalan forest reserve.
Officials say they removed them from the Mexican camp on Monday because of unhealthy and unsafe conditions there, and after Mexican farmers asked for their land back.
The National Immigration Institute said Wednesday that the 25 adults and 45 children have been sent back to Guatemala, where they were to be housed at a shelter.
The Guatemalans had reportedly refused to return to their country until they have guaranteed housing and land there.
US aided Pakistan group which supported extremists
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ISLAMABAD—The U.S. gave money to a Pakistani Muslim group that organized anti-Taliban rallies, but which later demonstrated in support of an extremist who killed a leading liberal politician, the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan said Wednesday.
The grant highlights the difficulties facing Washington as it seeks partners to support religious moderation in Pakistan. Last month, The Associated Press reported that the U.S. Embassy had created a counter-extremism unit to perform that mission.
U.S. government website Usaspending.gov shows that the group, the Sunni Ittehad Council, received $36,607 from Washington in 2009.
A U.S. diplomat said that the embassy had given money to the group to organize the rallies, but that it had since changed direction and leadership. He said it was a one-off grant, and wouldn’t be repeated. He didn’t give his name because he wasn’t authorized to speak about the issue on the record.
The grant was first reported by the Council of Foreign Relations on its website.
The Ittehad council was formed in 2009 to counter extremism. It groups politicians and clerics from Pakistan’s traditionalist Barelvi Muslim movement, often referred to as theological moderates in the Pakistani context.
The American money was used to organize nationwide rallies against militants and suicide bombings, the embassy official said. The demonstrations received widespread media coverage, and were some of the first against extremism in the country.
The rhetoric at the rallies was mostly focused on opposing militant attacks on shrines, which Barelvis frequent but are opposed by Deobandi Muslims, Pakistan’s other main Muslim sect. Deobandis dominate the ranks of the Taliban and other extremists. Some view Barelvis as heretics.
In 2011 and also this month, however, the council led demonstrations in support of the killer of Salman Taseer, a governor who was killed a year ago for his criticism of anti-blasphemy laws used to persecute religious minorities. The displays have appalled Pakistani liberals and stoked international fears that the country is buckling under the weight of extremism.
Taseer’s assassin, Mumtaz Qadri, is a Barelvi. He claimed he acted to defend the honor of the prophet Mohammed, a cause that is especially dear to Barelvis.
At its rallies, the group maintains its criticism of the Taliban even as it supports Qadri—a seemingly contradictory stance that suggests its leaders may be more interested in harnessing the political support and street power of Barelvis than in genuinely countering militancy.
Two leading members of the council who have been with the group from the beginning of its existence denied receiving any American funds. The apparent discrepancy could be explained by lack of transparency within the organization. However, given the current anti-American climate, owning up to receiving funds from the United States would invite criticism.
“This propaganda is being unleashed against us because we are strongly opposed to Western democracy and American policies in the region and in the world,” said Sahibzada Fazal Karim, the head of the council, before reiterating the group’s support for Qadri.
“We are against extremism, but we support Qadri because he did a right thing,” he said.
Muslim groups and clerics in Pakistan have a long history of receiving money from foreign countries. Deobandi clerics have received millions of dollars over the last 20 years from Gulf nations to promote their austere brand of Islam and an anti-Shiite agenda. Iran has in turn funded Shiite groups.
Iran nuclear scientist killed in car bomb
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AN Iranian nuclear scientist has been killed and two people injured when a magnetic bomb attached to a car by a duo on a motorbike exploded outside a Tehran university, Iranian news agencies said.
An Iranian official said Israel was behind the attack, pointing to similarities with previous killings of other nuclear scientists.
The person killed was identified by several media as Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a scientist who worked on separating gases at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, according to the website of a different university from which he graduated around a decade ago.
“This morning a motorbiker attached a bomb to a Peugeot 405, which exploded,” the governor of Tehran province, Safar Ali Bratloo, was quoted as saying by the ILNA news agency on Wednesday.
“The responsibility of this explosion falls on the Zionist regime,” Bratloo told Iran’s Arabic-language Al-Alam broadcaster.
“The method of this terrorist action is similar to previous actions that targeted Iran’s nuclear scientists,” he said.
The explosion occurred outside the east Tehran campus of Allameh Tabatai University, at its social sciences faculty.
Ahmadi Roshan was killed and the two wounded passengers were taken to hospital, Bratloo said.
Sharif University, Tehran’s elite technical university where the slain scientist had studied, said Ahmadi Roshan was specialised in making polymeric membranes used to separate gas. Iran uses gas separation to enrich uranium.
Three other Iranian scientists were killed in 2010 and 2011 when their cars blew up in similar circumstances. At least two of the scientists had also been working on nuclear activities.
One of the attacks occurred exactly two years ago, on January 11, 2010, killing scientist Masoud Ali Mohammdi.
The current head of Iran’s atomic organisation, Fereydoun Abbasi, escaped another such attempt in November 2010, getting out of his car with his wife just before the attached bomb exploded.
Those attacks were viewed by Iranian officials as assassination operations carried out by Israel’s Mossad intelligence service, possibly with help from US counterparts.
The latest blast comes amid extremely high international tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, which the West and Israel believe conceals research to develop an atomic bomb.
Israel has threatened to launch air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The United States has said “all options are on the table” in terms of dealing with Iran – including military action.
Tehran, which has repeatedly denied that its nuclear program is for anything other than peaceful purposes, has threatened to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to the Gulf if it is attacked. Twenty per cent of the world’s oil flows through that strait.
Wednesday’s car explosion followed confirmation on Monday by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran had started uranium enrichment at a fortified underground bunker southwest of Tehran, in Fordo.
The United States, Britain, France, Germany and Italy have viewed that development with alarm, saying it was a violation of UN Security Council resolutions on Iran.
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