Shameful behaviour by both Britain and Pakistan if true :nono:
British intelligence officials may have colluded in the torture of a British terrorism suspect who suffered months of appalling mistreatment, the Old Bailey was told yesterday. The officials appeared to have forged a tacit agreement with Pakistani torturers, one which suggests both sides in the war on terror have come “to share common standards of illegality and immorality”, the court heard.
Salahuddin Amin was repeatedly beaten, threatened, and witnessed the torture of other detainees while being questioned by the Pakistani security service, the ISI, over an alleged plot to bomb targets in the UK, said his counsel, Patrick O’Connor QC.
Mr Amin was also questioned by British officials, and agents of the security service and MI6 must have turned a blind eye because they would have had particular knowledge of the “notorious” way in which the ISI mistreats its prisoners. “The idea that they didn’t know, in general terms, the practices of the ISI, and what was likely to be happening to Mr Amin, will be regarded by you as risible,” Mr O’Connor said.
The court heard earlier that Mr Amin, 31, an al-Qaida suspect from Luton, Bedfordshire, had complained he was beaten and threatened with an electric drill after his arrest three years ago. There was no suggestion British agents participated in the abuse, Mr O’Connor said yesterday. Pakistani authorities would have ensured no British official was ever present, or even saw any marks on Mr Amin’s body.
But Mr Amin would have been too frightened to complain of his mistreatment when he met British officials in prison, fearing “word would have got back” to ISI agents. He had witnessed the torture of other detainees, which had been even more brutal, and feared his own treatment could deteriorate.
“You could well conclude that there was a tacit understanding of some considerable amorality,” Mr O’Connor told the jury. "The ISI can get away with what they can get away with. They are an organisation operating above the law, with no effective democratic control.
“The British authorities, of course, are not going to dirty their hands with such abuses. The amorality is that they are perfectly happy to gain what they regard as the benefit by way of intelligence, and information, and access to him.”