Islamic Pakistan: A Torture House for the West

UK outsourcing torture to Pak

MPs Call For Probe As New Evidence Arises

Rashmee Roshan Lall | TNN & AGENCIES

London: In a remarkable twist to the seven-year-old story of the West’s ‘war on terror’, British MPs on Monday called for an investigation into allegations that the country’s intelligence services “outsourced” the torture of British-Pakistanis to Pakistani security agencies.
    The demand lends credence to rumours repeatedly circulating in the three years since the July 7, 2005, bombings that the British authorities have allowed, even encouraged, a few British citizens of Pakistani origin to be picked up and subjected to torture during interrogation.
    John McDonnell, the Labour member for Hayes and Harlington, and Andrew Tyrie, Conservative member for Chichester, said the allegations should be examined by the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), the Westminster body that oversees the Security Service, MI5, and the Intelligence Service, MI6.
    The MPs’ made the demand after hearing accounts of three people being abducted and subjected to torture and, in some cases, released without charge.
    In the first case, a medical student says he was abducted at gunpoint just a month after the July 7 bombings and held for two months at the offices of Pakistan’s Intelligence Bureau opposite the British Deputy High Commission in Karachi. The student claims he was whipped, beaten, deprived of sleep, threatened with execution and forced to watch other inmates being tortured.
    The second case is of a taxi driver, Tariq Mahmood from Birmingham, who alleges he was abducted on October 23 in Rawalpindi and released five months later. His family suggested the hand of British and American security agencies in his abduction.
    Another British Pakistani, Tariq Shah, a 41-year-old author, claims he was held for 16 days in Pakistan after the suicide attack and interrogated in a “fullequipped torture chamber” with mangles, whips and electrical equipment.
    On Tuesday, McDonnell said he wants to know whether British officials colluded in the abuse of one of his constituents. He told the Guardian: “I believe that there is now sufficient evidence…to demonstrate that British officials outsourced the torture of British nationals to a Pakistani intelligence agency. ”
    The seriousness of the MPs’ charge is evidenced by the swift reaction from MI5, which asked the Home Office to issue a statement that said: “The security and intelligence agencies do not participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture or inhumane or degrading treatment.”

DISASTROUS: Ever since the 7/7 bombings, there have been whispers that Britain has allowed British-Pakistani citizens to be picked up and tortured by Pakistan’s ISI

Source: The Times of India, new Delhi

URL: https://newageislam.com/war-terror/islamic-pakistan-torture-house-west/d/241