By TIM SHIPMAN
Last updated at 7:47 AM on 23rd September 2010
Courtesy Of "The Daily Mail Online"
David Miliband faced fresh questions over torture yesterday after it emerged that he gave the green light for interrogations of terrorist suspects in countries where there was a risk of abuse.
Security sources say MI6 consulted the former Foreign Secretary in 'particularly difficult' cases.
Mr Miliband approved some interrogations involving countries with poor human rights records and refused permission in others.
Sources close to Mr Miliband said it was 'routine' for Foreign Secretaries to examine such cases.
But the revelation that he was so closely involved in discussion of difficult cases is likely to provoke fresh controversy if he wins the Labour leadership on Saturday.
Yesterday the Labour leadership candidate was also forced to confront claims he allowed the interrogation of three terror suspects who allege they were tortured in Bangladesh and Egypt.
One of the men, Faisal Mostafa, a chemistry lecturer from Manchester who has twice been cleared of terrorism offences in court, was detained in Bangladesh last year. He claims he was hung upside down and electrocuted while interrogators quizzed him about two Islamist groups.
Mr Miliband took the rare step of making a formal request to the Foreign Office to examine official papers surrounding the cases – a privilege not routinely available to former office holders. He then issued a statement saying no minister was asked to grant permission for the men to be detained and that it would be wrong to suggest that he had ever sanctioned torture.
A source close to Mr Miliband said his only involvement in the cases came when the detainees subsequently requested consular access from British diplomats.
'David's role was to help them,' the source said.
But his decision to break off on Tuesday from the final day of the Labour leadership contest to spend two hours examining the paperwork highlights the grave seriousness of the issue.
Mr Miliband is vulnerable to criticism since he has issued blanket denials that British spies were in any way complicit in torture.
These claims have been contradicted by evidence presented in the High Court, where judges have ruled that MI5 was aware of the torture of former Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed.
Abuse claims: Faisal Mostafa, a chemistry lecturer from Manchester, said he was tortured as interrogators quizzed him
Mr Miliband is almost certain to be called to give evidence in the Government's judicial inquiry into British complicity in torture, which ministers hope will begin before the end of the year.
Six former Guantanamo Bay inmates are suing the government accusing MI5 and MI6 officers of complicity.
Clara Gutteridge, investigator at the legal charity Reprieve said yesterday: 'While David Miliband was Foreign Secretary, the intelligence services were routinely involved in intelligence gathering operations involving the abuse of prisoners.
'It is clearly wrong that Government ministers can personally authorise action which exposes prisoners to abuse.
'It is vital that the UK torture inquiry discovers how many ministerial authorisations resulted in abuse and why oversight mechanisms – including the role of the Intelligence Services Commissioner – failed to regulate such illegality.
' A spokesman for Mr Miliband said: 'Torture is a moral abomination and also illegal. 'There is an international ban on torture and every government and every human being should abide by it.The British Government and all its agencies certainly do.
'David would never ever sanction torture and it is completely wrong to suggest, imply, or leave a shadow of a doubt otherwise.'
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