Spy chief defends MI5 over 'torture cover-up'

Published on Thursday 11 February 2010 19:32

THE head of MI5 has strongly defended the work of the Security Service in the face of damaging accusations that the service had tried to cover up its involvement in the torture of detainees.

Last night director-general Jonathan Evans said claims by one of the country's most senior judges that there was a "culture of suppression" within the service were "the precise opposite of the truth".

It also emerged that Mr Evans had contacted the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) to deny claims that MI5 withheld documents relating to the treatment of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed.

Mr Evans's rare public statement came after documents released yesterday at the Court of Appeal showed that the Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, had severely criticised MI5 in a draft ruling relating to Mr Mohamed's case.

He said the service had a "culture of suppression" and accused it of failing to respect human rights and of deliberately misleading the ISC and Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

However, Mr Evans said MI5 was simply seeking to protect the country from "enemies" who would use "all the tools and their disposal" – including propaganda – to attack.

"We will do all that we can to keep the country safe from terrorist attack. We will use all the powers available to us under the law," he is reported as having said.

"For their part, our enemies will also seek to use all tools at their disposal to attack us. That means not just bombs, bullets and aircraft but also propaganda.

"Their freedom to voice extremist views is part of the price we pay for living in a democracy, and it is a price worth paying."

The paper went on to quote a "well-placed Whitehall source" as suggesting there was a deliberate campaign to undermine the agencies through actions being brought against them in the courts.

"There is no doubt there is a campaign being run to try to destabilise the intelligence agencies. They are using against them mechanisms like the courts and are being funded by the taxpayer to do so," the source was quoted as saying.

ISC chairman Kim Howells disclosed that Mr Evans had contacted him last night to assure him that MI5 had not withheld from the committee documents relating to Mr Mohamed's treatment by the US authorities.

Channel 4 television reported that MI5 received CIA documents about his case in 2002 but failed to produce them to the committee's investigation into the extraordinary rendition of terrorist suspects in 2006.

In a joint statement with the senior Conservative on the ISC, Michael Mates, Dr Howells said: "The director-general has confirmed to us this evening that no document concerning Binyam Mohamed and his treatment by the US authorities has been withheld from us.

"He has also reiterated that his staff understand and are complying with all their obligations in this regard under which they perform their difficult and sometimes dangerous duties."

A Scotland Yard investigation is currently under way into an M15 officer who questioned Mr Mohamed while he was being held in Pakistan following his arrest there in 2002.

The document released yesterday by the Court of Appeal show that MI5 was aware that he was being subjected to sleep deprivation, stress tactics, and shackling by his US interrogators.