JURIST - Paper Chase: Rights group presses for UK investigation of CIA rendition flights

[JURIST] UK rights group Liberty [advocacy website] has threatened to take legal action [press release] against the British government and senior police officers unless they agree to investigate allegations that the US Central Intelligence Agency [official website] has operated "torture flights" that have landed in the UK. In recent months, reports have surfaced that CIA flights carrying terror detainees have landed in airfields across Europe [JURIST report] en route to facilities where the detainees are likely to be tortured. According to a September Guardian report, CIA planes have flown into the UK over 200 times since September 11, 2001. Liberty has written letters to UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and multiple chief constables [Liberty letters, PDF] asserting that "people transported through the United Kingdom as part of the practice of extraordinary rendition are subjected to torture within the United Kingdom" and, if the existence of the flights is proved, the UK would therefore be in breach of the UK Criminal Justice Act [text], the European Convention on Human Rights [text], the Convention against Torture [text] and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [text]. The Telegraph has more.

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