Allegations that UK intelligence agencies ordered redactions to a US report on CIA torture in order to cover up its role in the mistreatment of detainees are unfounded, MPs have ruled.
An investigation by the British parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC) has concluded that redactions to documents in December’s report into CIA torture were all made on the grounds of national security and not to avoid embarrassment to the UK authorities.
A statement from the committee said its staff had visited the UK and US intelligence agencies, inspected the relevant files and questioned their heads directly. “From the evidence we have seen and heard, we conclude that these allegations are unfounded,” it states.
“[The redactions] do not concern UK involvement or complicity in, or awareness of, the mistreatment of detainees,” the statement adds.
The ISC found that the CIA itself proposed redactions relating to UK intelligence material, to which the British agencies agreed, but that those redactions were also in the interests of national security.
The committee admit ted the evidence was limited. “We note that the UK agencies were at no stage provided with the draft reports. Rather they were given sight of heavily edited extracts, which they could not retain. We have seen the agencies’ internal file notes, but not the specific redactions proposed by the CIA,” it said.
The conclusions relate to the specific question of what redactions the UK security agencies requested and not to the question of any complicity by them in the mistreatment of detainees.
The committee is continuing its wider inquiry into the possible involvement of the UK security and intelligence agencies in torture, the results of which will not be known until after the general election in May.
In December, the Senate intelligence committee published a report on the CIA’s detention programme since 9/11, which concluded the agency’s use of torture was brutal, ineffective and “a stain on [US] values and on [US] history”.
