[Ppnews] UK responsible for the illegal rendition of Muhammed Madni

[Political Prisoner News]

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  BRIEFING: DIEGO GARCIA LITIGATION
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http://www.reprieve.org.uk/mohammedsaadiqbalmadniactionagainstbritishgov

On Tuesday 28th July Reprieve will announce a 
lawsuit against the British government on behalf 
of torture victim Mohammed Saad Iqbal Madni.

Reprieve believes the UK shares responsibility 
for the illegal rendition of Mr Madni through the 
British Overseas Territory Diego Garcia, and thus 
for his subsequent torture and ill treatment in 
Egypt, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay.

Reprieve will launch two distinct sets of legal 
proceedings on behalf of Mr Madni.

1) Legal action in the Supreme Court of the 
British Indian Ocean Territories (BIOT), 
responsible for Diego Garcia, to compel the 
British Colonial authorities to provide all 
information they have about Mr Madni's 
extraordinary rendition through Diego Garcia and 
his subsequent ill-treatment and torture.

2) The same action in the UK Courts to compel the 
UK Government to provide all information they have about Mr Madni’s case.

The reason for bringing the claim in both 
jurisdictions is that the colonial authorities 
and the UK Government are legally distinct and 
subject to the two different jurisdictions.  The 
BIOT Court also only exists in theory; no civil 
claim has ever been brought there because there 
is no civilian population on Diego Garcia.

These two claims are required in order to obtain 
an admission that Diego Garcia was used in Mr 
Madni’s case to assist his unlawful rendition and 
ultimate torture in Cairo and elsewhere. If these 
actions are successful in establishing the facts, 
subsequent claims can then be brought by Madni 
for damages in a number of jurisdictions.

Background

The issue of illegal detentions and renditions 
involving Diego Garcia was first publicly raised 
in December 2002 in an open letter authored by 
Human Rights Watch UK and addressed to ex-Prime 
Minister Tony Blair. It warned: “The treatment of 
detainees on Diego Garcia
implicates the legal 
obligations of the British government.”

In a subsequent series of parliamentary questions 
and answers between 2003 and 2008, the British 
government consistently denied the presence of 
detainees on the island, repeatedly referring to 
“firm assurances” given by the United States that 
“at no time have there been any detainees on 
Diego Garcia. Neither have they transited through 
the territorial seas or airspace surrounding 
Diego Garcia.” (UK Intelligence and Security 
Committee’s report on renditions, July 2007)

The UK’s sole reliance on US assurances belies 
the fact that there is a significant British 
military and administrative presence on Diego 
Garcia – “the Brits own the island”, according to 
one former US serviceman – and that the UK also 
has clear civil and criminal legal jurisdiction.

Diego Garcia is part of the British Indian Ocean 
Territory (‘BIOT’). Its independent 
administration is run by the East Africa Desk of 
the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (‘the FCO’) 
in London. The Commanding Officer of the island’s 
civil administration is the British 
Representative, who is under the authority of the 
FCO. The British Representative is also Commander 
of the Royal Navy, the Magistrate, the Coroner, 
and the Register of Marriages. Approximately 
fifty further British Royal Navy and Marines 
personnel work for the civil administration.

While the 1966 Anglo-American Agreement grants 
the US military authorities the right to exercise 
criminal and disciplinary jurisdiction over 
persons subject to US military law, the UK 
authorities retain “exclusive jurisdiction over 
members of United States forces with respect to 
offences, including offences relating to 
security, punishable by law in force in the 
territory but not by the law of the United States.”

Finally, on 21st February 2008, David Miliband 
conceded by statement to Parliament and by letter 
to Clive Stafford Smith that, contrary to US 
assurances, two rendition flights carrying US 
prisoners had stopped on Diego Garcia for 
refuelling in January 2002 and September 2002 
respectively. Despite his pledge at that time to 
“work through the details and implications of 
this information”, the British government has 
done nothing further to clarify the situation 
beyond the Foreign Minister’s declaration on 12th 
February 2009 (in response to a parliamentary 
question) asserting that both individuals 
rendered through the island had been returned to their native countries.

With the limited information made available to 
them, Reprieve identified one of the two 
detainees as Mohammed Saad Iqbal Madni based on this process of deduction:

·         One of the prisoners was released from 
Guantánamo at some point between 14th February 2008 and November 2009.
·         From that list, individuals apprehended 
after January 2002 were discarded.
·         From that list, individuals whose 
detention histories do not include renditions 
where Diego Garcia would be a feasible refuelling stopover were discarded.
·         One detainee remained: Mr Madni.

Mr Madni was seized at 4am on 9th January 2002, 
in Jakarta, Indonesia. He reports that on the 
evening of 10th January he was bundled aboard a 
plane, which took off around 10pm. This is 
corroborated by eyewitness reports at a military 
airport in Jakarta and by Eurocontrol flight 
logs. Mr Madni has also stated that the plane 
stopped over once during the flight from 
Indonesia to Egypt. During the stopover he was 
hooded, and never removed from the plane, 
although cameramen entered the plane and photographed him.

The Gulfstream jet, tail number N379P, which was 
almost certainly used in Mr Madni’s rendition has 
a cruising speed of between 459 and 585 knots. 
Not only would a stopover on Diego Garcia be 
eminently feasible in a long flight across the 
Indian Ocean, but furthermore Mr Madni’s 
estimates of the durations of both legs of his 
journeys are consistent with the distances 
between Jakarta, Diego Garcia and Cairo and the cruising speed of N379P.

Eurocontrol flight logs indicate that N379P 
stopped over in Cairo for six days after dropping 
him, before returning to Washington via Prestwick 
(again utilising UK territory). It is possible, 
therefore, that some of the US rendition crew 
were present at Madni’s interrogations on 11th 
and 12th January, during which masked men were 
present who passed notes to his Egyptian interrogators.

During his rendition flight, Mr Madni reports, he 
was bleeding from his mouth, nose and ears, and 
shackled so tightly that he was unable to move. 
Once in Cairo, he alleges, his Egyptian 
interrogators tortured him using electric shocks 
and drugs, attempting to extract confessions of 
meetings with Osama bin Laden and trips to 
Afghanistan that had never taken place.

He had been apprehended by the Indonesians at the 
behest of US authorities after commenting to a 
radical Islamist whom he had met in Jakarta that 
bombs could be hidden in his shoes; intelligence 
agents monitoring the man picked up on this 
comment and made a connection with Richard Reid’s 
failed shoe bomb attack. Mr Madni was, in the 
words of his uncle, a man who “had a childish 
habit of trying to portray himself as important”, 
and according to a US intelligence official, a 
“blowhard [who] wanted us to believe he was more 
important than he was”; the comment was no indication of genuine threat.

 From Cairo, Mr Madni was transferred first to 
Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, and subsequently 
to Guantánamo. At Bagram he was shackled and 
handcuffed in a small cage with other detainees, 
and for a period of six months was shifted from 
cell to cell every few hours so that he was 
deprived of sleep. By the time he arrived in 
Guantánamo he was, according to fellow prisoners, 
“passing blood in his feces” and having bladder 
problems; his interrogators apparently made full 
cooperation a condition of medical treatment. He 
went on three hunger strikes and attempted to hang himself twice.

Mr Madni ultimately spent over seven years in US 
custody. Consequently he is now unable to walk 
unaided and suffers debilitative psychological scarring.

The 1976 Exchange of Notes between the UK and US 
governments in relation to Diego Garcia clearly 
requires that the UK must be informed of all 
intended movements of US ships and aircraft on or 
through BIOT territory. In addition, the UK 
Foreign Office has stated that the US would 
require the permission of the UK to bring 
“unlawful combatants” onto the island.

Despite this, it has been extremely difficult to 
obtain any flight records involving Diego Garcia. 
In response to questions about this, Margaret 
Beckett has said: “It was very difficult for the 
government
There was not a clear, simple trace of 
record keeping.” More than one independent source 
has suggested that flight logs through Diego Garcia have been destroyed.

Another possible explanation for the absence of 
conventional flight records may be that Mr 
Madni’s rendition flight operated under a 
“special status designator” (STS indicator). An 
examination of detailed records available for 
four other rendition flights conducted by N379P 
reveal that the plane routinely operated under 
such indicators. If they were used in the course 
of Mr Madni’s flight, these indicators would 
suggest knowledge of, authorisation for, and full 
collaboration in, the rendition at the highest 
echelons of both operating state (the United 
States) and host state (the United Kingdom).

INFORMATION NEEDED FROM THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office must urgently clarify:

·         The scope and terms of the FCO’s 
“inquiry” into renditions, and is the inquiry ongoing.
·         How long it has known the identities, 
rendition histories and current situations of the people concerned.
·         Why it has not released this information.
·         What assurances, if any, have been 
sought by the British and/or granted by the 
Americans in relation to these individuals, and when.
·         When the British government became 
aware of the apprehension of Mohammed Saad Iqbal 
Madni, or of an individual believed at the time 
to be a close associate of Richard Reid.
·         If they knew about Mr Madni’s 
apprehension at the time that he was transferred through Diego Garcia.
·         If and when any British personnel saw 
or spoke to Mr Madni while he was being 
transferred through Diego Garcia or at any time 
between his apprehension in January 2002 and his release in August 2009.
·         If and when the British government 
sought assurances from the US or Egyptian 
government as to Mr Madni’s treatment while he was in Egypt.
·         If and when the British government 
sought assurances from the US government as to Mr 
Madni’s treatment while he was in Afghanistan.
·         If and when the British government 
sought assurances from the US government as to Mr 
Madni’s treatment while he was in Guantánamo.

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office must urgently reveal:

·         All records and communications, 
including flight logs, flight manifests, and any 
other records, corroborating Mr Madni’s account 
of his illegal detention and torture in Egypt.
·         All records and communications, 
including flight logs, flight manifests, and any 
other records, corroborating Mr Madni’s account 
of his illegal detention and torture in Afghanistan.
·         All records and communications, 
including flight logs, flight manifests, and any 
other records, corroborating Mr Madni’s account 
of his illegal detention and torture in Guantánamo.
·         All internal UK government, military 
and other communications and records relating in 
any way to flights through, or transfers of prisoners through, Diego Garcia.
·         All communications and records between 
the UK government or military and any foreign 
government or military relating in any way to 
flights through, or transfers of prisoners through, Diego Garcia.
·         How many flight logs were destroyed and their content.
·         The routine practise for destruction of such records.
·         When these particular records were destroyed.
·         Why these particular records were destroyed.
·         When the first questions were posed about rendition flights.
·         Whether the records had been destroyed 
by the time questions were regularly being posed about rendition flights.
·         Who authorised the destruction of these 
logs, and who was aware of the decision either at the time or subsequently.

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office must urgently request:

·         Any records and communications, 
including photographs, corroborating Mr Madni’s 
account of his illegal detention and torture in Egypt from the US government.
·         Any records and communications, 
including photographs, corroborating Mr Madni’s 
account of his illegal detention and torture in 
Afghanistan from the US government.
·         Any records and communications, 
including photographs, corroborating Mr Madni’s 
account of his illegal detention and torture in Guantánamo.




Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
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