MPs call for halt to extradition of 'terrorist' cleric Abu Hamza to US after CIA admitted to torture

Britain should stop extraditing prisoners to America following the CIA’s admission that it ‘tortured’ terror suspects, an influential group of MPs has demanded.

The move by the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee would prevent the extradition of hook-handed cleric Abu Hamza, who faces terror charges in the US, and Babar Ahmad, accused of fund-raising for the Taliban.

Ministers have previously been willing to take at face-value statements from President George Bush that the US does not resort to torture.

But the committee says this should no longer be the case after CIA admitted the ‘waterboarding’ of three detainees.

The technique involving simulated drowning has already been described as torture by Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

The MPs say this has implications for extradition to the U.S. as the UK is a signatory to a United Nations convention barring the return of individuals to states where they are at risk of  torture.

During waterboarding a detainee is bound to a board with feet raised and cellophane wrapped around his head.

Water is poured onto his face, making the suspect fear he will drown.

In February, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, Michael McConnell, told a Senate committee waterboarding was ‘a legal technique used in a specific set
of circumstances’.

President Bush vetoed a bill which would have banned it, saying he did not want to deprive agents of valuable tools in the war on terror.

In April, Mr Miliband told the House of Commons: ‘I consider that waterboarding amounts to torture.

'The UK unreservedly condemns the use of torture.’

Today’s report by the Foreign Affairs Committee said there is a ‘striking inconsistency’ in Ministers’ continued acceptance of the Bush administration’s denial that it uses torture.

‘We recommend that the Government does not rely on such assurances in the future,’ said the committee.

The report also urged the Government to press the U.S. authorities for information on whether any American military flights landing in the UK were part of the ‘rendition circuit’, even if they did not have detainees on board.

The Government has repeatedly accepted U.S. assurances that UK territory has not been used for ‘rendition’ – the secret transfer of suspects between countries.

But in February, Mr Miliband said he had been informed by the U.S. that two rendition planes refuelled on the British territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

Today’s report highlights claims from human rights groups including Amnesty International that U.S. planes landing at UK airports were either on their way to pick up detainees for rendition or returning from delivering them.

The MPs also urged the Foreign Office to investigate allegations that Britain ‘outsourced’ interrogation of terror suspects to Pakistan’s intelligence agency.

It has been claimed six British nationals were detained and tortured in Pakistan, where they were also interrogated by British intelligence officers.

Foreign minister Lord Malloch-Brown told the committee: ‘We absolutely deny the charge.’