Is UK complicit in torture? Let’s find out

I was delighted to see the Lord Advocate instruct the ­police to study the damning US Senate ­report on CIA ­torture as part of an ongoing investigation into rendition flights landing at ­Scottish ­airports.

Scottish police began their own investigation into ­rendition flights last year after ­research claimed that airports including ­Aberdeen, Inverness and Wick had been used as refuelling stops in the transfer of terror suspects to “secret prison and torture ­destinations” in other parts of the world.

The use of Edinburgh, ­Glasgow and Prestwick ­airports had been identified previously. The use of torture is against ­international law and contrary to the common law of Scotland. It is scarcely credible that MI6, now known as the Secret Intelligence Service, and other UK ­border and security agencies were not aware of the rendition flights.

It is also unbelievable to think that senior UK Government ­ministers, both Labour and ­Conservative, were not aware of what was going on.

The Scottish and UK governments should now be pushing for investigators to have ­access to the entire report, not just the executive summary that has been published.

The UK Government must also give immediate answers on whether these intelligence flights involved rendition and what knowledge it had of the practices detailed in the report.

Failure to do so will speak ­volumes about its complicity in this whole sordid affair.

Alex Orr

Leamington Terrace

Edinburgh