Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

While the Security Service in a statement to The Guardian released by the Home Office insisted that it did not "participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture," details of three new cases have generated concern among Members of Parliament.

John McDonnell, the Labour member for Hayes and Harlington, and Andrew Tyrie, Conservative member for Chichester, say the allegations should be examined by the Intelligence and Security Committee.

That is the Westminster body that oversees the Security Service, MI5, and the Intelligence Service MI6.  MI5 is comparable to the American FBI as an investigative network while MI6 resembles in responsibilities and scope the Central Intelligence Agency.

That is the Westminster body that oversees the Security Service, MI5, and the Intelligence Service MI6.  MI5 is comparable to the American FBI as an investigative network while MI6 resembles in responsibilities and scope the Central Intelligence Agency.

McDonnell expressed concern about possible collusions of British officials in abusing one of his constituents.  The man, a medical student, revealed that he was abducted at gunpoint in August 2005 and held for two months in the offices of Pakistan's Intelligence Bureau opposite the British Deputy High Commission in Karachi.  

The student, who had not spoken out before, described "how he was whipped, beaten, deprived of sleep, threatened with execution and witnessed other inmates being tortured."

The student was eventually released to his father, who says he received a personal apology from the director of the Intelligence Bureau, and returned to his London teaching hospital.  He now works in a hospital in the south-east of England.

The second Briton alleged to have been victimized by torture is Tariz Mahmood, a 35-year-old taxi driver from Sparkhill, Birmingham, who said he was abducted in Rawalpindi in October 2003 and released without charge about five months later.

Mahmood is thought to have been held in a prison run by a different agency, Inter-Service Intelligence, where a number of other Britons have been held and allegedly tortured before being flown to the UK to stand trail.  

His family says that Mahmood was tortured, and that MI5 and American intelligence officers were involved in his mistreatment.  They have declined to issue any detailed allegation, "apparently fearing for the safety of relatives in Pakistan."

Tahir Shah, 41, an author from London, says that he was held for 16 days in 2005.  He says he was interrogated about the July 7 London bombings in what he described as "a fully-equipped torture chamber" with mangles, whips and electrical equipment.  

According to Shah, "he was hooded and shackled for long periods and deprived of sleep.  He does not allege that British officials were involved, but believes it is unlikely they would not have been informed.  He was eventually bundled aboard a scheduled flight to Heathrow, where his passport was returned by an unnamed official whom he believes to have been from MI5."

In April The Guardian reported that four other British men, who had been detained in Pakistan during British-led counter-terrorism operations and held illegally for several months without access to a lawyer or court, had each alleged that British officials colluded in their torture.

Here is what one of the four victims, Salahuddin Amin, 33, a university graduate from Luton, later told the Old Bailey that "he was interviewed by two MI5 officers several times in 10 months in between being whipped, beaten with sticks, suspended from his wrists and threatened with an electric drill.  MI5 was permitted to give its response to the allegations in camera, with the media and the public excluded."

Is this the brand of "democracy" that the alliance of George Bush, Dick Cheney and Tony Blair promised to "export" to the Arab world?