APPG News

The Westminster Hall debate on the Oversight of the Intelligence and Security Services, held on 31 October 2013, can be read here.

A Senate Select Committee report describes the structure of its classified report on the US rendition programme.  The rendition report is divided into three volumes: Part I covers the History and Operation of the Detention and Interrogation Programme Part 2 covers the Intelligence Acquired and CIA Representations on the Effectiveness of the CIA's Enhanced Interrogation Techniques  Part 3 covers the Detention and Interrogation of Detainees More can be read here.

Lawyers for the Government argued that Mr Belhaj's case against MI5, MI6 and former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw should be thrown out of court because any unlawful act did not take place in the UK.  A witness for the FCO also testified that allowing the case to proceed could harm relations with other countries.  Belhaj, a Libyan dissident under Qaddafi's regime, and his then-pregnant wife, Fatima Bouchar, were rendered from Bangkok to Tripoli, where he was tortured.  More can be read here. 

At a Heny Jackson Society event held on 30 September 2013, former CIA Director Michael Hayden reflected on the extraordinary rendition programme and its consequences.  The full transcript of the talk can be found here.

Stephen Preston, former General Counsel of the CIA, also acknowledged that it is possible to determine whether legal alternatives to burtal interrogations of detainees would have produced the same intelligence.  More can be read here.

The civil case brought by Libyan dissident Abdul Hakim Belhaj and his wife Fatima Bouchar concerning their 2004 rendition, which involved the CIA and MI6, brings claims of false imprisonment, conspiracy to cause injury, abuse of public office and negligence against the Government, MI6 and former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.  More can be read here.