International   

Campaigners call for Diego Garcia inquiry

LONDON: Two human rights groups called on Saturday for Britain to launch a new inquiry into claims that the United States used the British outpost of Diego Garcia to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects.

Campaigners from Britain’s Liberty and the American Civil Liberties Union said in a letter to Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband that they suspect the Indian Ocean island has been used to hold prisoners — despite denials from Washington and London.

Britain has said the U.S. has offered assurances that the outpost, halfway between Africa and South-East Asia, has not been used to detain suspects.

But in February the U.S. acknowledged previous denials that the island had never been used by so-called extraordinary rendition flights had been wrong. The State Department said it had misled the British government and confirmed two suspects had been on flights that stopped to refuel on Diego Garcia en route to Guantanamo Bay and Morocco in 2002.

Britain demanded checks on a list of 391 other flights highlighted by human rights groups and lawmakers, but the U.S. said it found no evidence of other cases where Diego Garcia had been used.

Campaigners insist the island has been used to hold suspects, citing claims by former U.S. counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke that the base was likely used for interrogations. “It seems that previous failures by the U.S. to inform the U.K. government about the use of Diego Garcia for rendition flights might only be part of the picture,” Liberty and the ACLU said in the joint letter.

The letter, signed by Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti and ACLU executive director Anthony Romero, calls on Mr. Miliband to order a full inquiry into the use of the island. “We will not rest without real answers to the scandal of torture flights and inhuman interrogation in freedom’s name,” Ms. Chakrabarti said.

Britain has leased the island to the U.S. to be used as a military base since the 1970s. Entry to the island is barred except by permit.

Lawmakers pledged last month to make a new study of the movements of planes and ships travelling to the island, amid lingering concerns over its use. — AP

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

2,000 killed in Georgian offensive: Russia
Pakistan Parliament to meet on August 11
Swraj Paul loses CPA poll
High technology drove epic Games opening
Barbadians slam discovery, naming of tiny snake
Campaigners call for Diego Garcia inquiry
Indian diaspora event planned in Singapore

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu