Amnesty confirms that UK colluded in CIA terror flights

5.21.34pm UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 14th Jun 2006

CIA terror flight

Britain is a "partner in crime" with the United States in organising secret flights to move terror suspects around the world and UK ministers have adopted a "see no evil, hear no evil" approach to CIA flights." says Amnesty International.

Amnesty International has called on Britain and all other EU states to stop their airports from being used for the practice. They have also called for a public inquiry into the flights - known as "extraordinary renditions" - because it says domestic and international laws have been broken.

Last week at Prime Minister's questions Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell asked Tony Blair to confirm that the UK had neither given logistical support to the CIA on the flights nor given information to be used in torture. The prime minister said the government had said all it had to say on the issue and repeated the government's insistence that since 1998 it had agreed to two US requests for prisoner flights through the UK, and refused two others.

The Amnesty report tries to put Britain's fingerprints on the cases of two men - Bisher Al-Rawi, 38, and Jamil El-Banna, 44. They were arrested after flying to Gambia in November 2002 and eventually ended up in Guantanamo Bay - where they are still being held. Amnesty claimed their travel arrangements were passed to the US and as a result the government was "instrumental" in their detention.