MI5 policy ‘gives agents legal immunity to commit serious crimes’

The MI5 building on Millbank, in London.

Human rights groups challenge extent and legality of powers to commit crimes such as torture

MI5 operates a partially secret policy that allows agents to participate in serious crimes including torture and killing, a security tribunal has heard.

In a challenge to the intelligence service’s handling of agents, lawyers for a coalition of human rights groups have questioned the legality and extent of the powers.

Some elements of what is known as “the third direction” – guidelines permitting agents to become involved in criminal conduct – have been published. Crucial details specifying whether there are limits on such criminal activity, however, remain secret.

Ben Jaffey QC, representing Privacy International, Reprieve, the Belfast-based Committee on the Administration of Justice and the Pat Finucane Centre, said the policy in effect meant that MI5 was granting immunity to its agents.

Addressing the investigatory powers tribunal (IPT), which hears complaints about surveillance and the intelligence agencies, Jaffey said that if there were any limits on the type of criminal behaviour MI5 authorised they remained secret.

Because MI5 does not tell the victim of any crime, police or prosecutors about such incidents, Jaffey argued, they were in practice concealed and no public interest prosecution was considered.

The issues raised were not hypothetical, he stressed. Collusion between officials and agents inside terrorist organisations had led to grave abuses, he said.

Police have recently recommended that more than 20 people, including senior officials, should be prosecuted for murder, kidnap, torture and perverting the course of justice following an investigation by Operation Kenova into the handling of agents inside the IRA during Northern Ireland’s Troubles.

Jaffey told the IPT that “the practical effect of the policy is therefore for the executive to grant itself the power in secret to dispense with the criminal law enacted by parliament”.

He added: “The criminality is kept secret within MI5 so police and prosecutors do not find out about it. So for practical purposes MI5 are granting immunity, the strength of which depends on the ability of MI5 to keep a secret.”

The hearing is expected to last for the rest of the week. Some evidence will be heard behind closed doors without the media or lawyers for the claimants being present.

MI5’s policy was drawn up following the murder of the Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane in 1989 by loyalist paramilitaries who had been working as informants for RUC’s special branch.

In a skeleton argument submitted by Sir James Eadie QC, who represents the government and intelligence agencies, agents, also known as CHIS (covert human intelligence sources), are described as “indispensable” to the work of the security service.

His submission to the tribunal is heavily redacted with many key passages blacked out. Eadie argues that “the security service does not, and does not purport to, confer immunity from criminal liability” to its agents.

MI5 does not authorise breaches of the Human Rights Act, Eadie maintains. The agency’s “Participation in Criminality (PiC) forms”, he said, ensures that the law is not broken.

A number of PiC forms have been opened up to the IPT, Eadie’s submission reveals, although they have not been made public.

Eadie has told the tribunal: “The security service does not purport to, and could not, offer immunity from criminal liability … The ‘authorisation’ will be [MI5’s] explanation and justification of its decisions should the criminal activity of the agent come under scrutiny of [police or prosecutors].

“The authorisation process and associated records may form the basis of representations by the service to the prosecuting authorities that prosecution is not in the public interest.”

A similar public policy of discretion not to prosecute, Eadie added, appears in Crown Prosecution Service guidelines covering how to deal with relatives of the terminally ill who accompany them to Swiss-assisted suicide clinics such as Dignitas.

Eadie said the tribunal has been given “information about all crimes ‘authorised’ since 2000”. The IPT has selected a number of PiCs (Participation in Crime) forms. “This will allow for the case-specific complexities for each individual instance of authorisation to be considered.”

In none of them has MI5 breached any human rights, Eadie said. Indeed, under its obligation to uphold the right to life, under the European convention on human rights, MI5 has a duty to counter threats from espionage, terrorism and sabotage.

Commenting on the case, Maya Foa, the director at Reprieve, said: “Our intelligence agencies play a vital role in keeping this country safe – but this does not mean that there should be no limits on UK activity when MI5 agents become involved in crime. The government must make clear what limits – if any – they place on agents committing serious crimes like torture or murder.”
The hearing continues.

With many thanks to: The Guardian and Owen Bowcott Legal Affairs Correspondent for the original story@owenbowcott

Maghaberry Prison -THE ONGOING NEGLECT AND TORTURE BEING INFLICTED ON Gary McDaid – Maghaberry Prison !!!!

END THE ABUSE IN MAGHABERRY

Derry Sceal

The ongoing Neglect and Torture inflicted on Gary McDaid

It has been brought to the attention of the IRPWA that Gary McDaid is suffering a debilitating illness within the walls of MagHaberry but has been informed by the authorities that he will not be receiving treatment as he is not a sentenced prisoner.

Gary suffers from a serious form of Glaucoma and there is a genetic family history of this disease which has led to family members suffering complete blindness.

The optician who was able to gain access to examine him stated that he had not seen such a rapid regression in one so young and without treatment, could lead to Gary losing his sight.His feet have also swollen to such an extent, he can’t put on shoes.

Last week saw charges against Gary for wrecking his cell. Any and all personal artifacts were removed including photographs of his children.

Gary is and has been on dirty protest as a result of the sectarian authorities within the gaol granting MI5 free reign to his cell to make approaches and mentally torture him.

He is existing in his own waste in solitary confinement with Loyalist prisoners being given access to bang on his cell door and shout threats consistently and this all appears to be part of a greater agenda by shadowy British crown forces to exert pressure on him through this form of torture.

His existence, ill, in a bare holding cell with a one inch rubber mattress and living with the stench and health implications through his protest, some would have you think had been consigned to history.

This is reality in 2013. This is British torture on Irish soil and typifies the age old disregard towards human rights for those not beholden to the British crown.

Help end the neglect in MagHaberry..Help highlight the ongoing injustices by a cruel British torture regime and those who back them.

Derry Sceal

Important – Please share

END THE TORTURE OF IRISH REPUBLICAN PRISONERS !!!

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POLITICAL PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE STILL TORTURED IN BRITISH OCCUPIED IRELAND

British Torture Occupied Ireland
 
 
A DEPICTION OF BRITISH TORTURE IN OCCUPIED IRELAND
 

Irish political prisoners of conscience are currently violently forcefully strip searched, hand raped, while enduring 23-hour a day lockup in filthy cells. Brutal sadistic beatings are the regular norm by drunken sectarian brutes. There are untreated life threatening medical emergencies, interned without charge or other with kangaroo courts, without ethical judges or jury, with sadistic and sexually perverted prison staff, who run amok with riot batons, breaking prisoners bones and accountable to no-one.

Gerry McGeough along with Marian PriceMarian Price, who was previously on hunger strike for 200 days, as a prisoner of conscience, are again recent political internees without trial of the British. Martin McGuinness their former comrade who now helps administer British rule in Ireland, advised the British that the these political prisoners of conscience are the soft underbelly of Irish resistance. He further dubbed journalists who cover their plight as “dissident journalists” to further encourage rampant censorship.

Gerry has had two heart attacks and is currently in very bad health, deprived of medication in his prison cell. Just after his recent internment, Gerry called to say, that during the previous night’s physically enforced lockdown, several political prisoners wound up with broken arms, legs and noses, beat down by 50 prison guards with dogs, in full riot gear, masks, with batons calling the prisoner’s “Fenian bastards”.

He described the situation as really bad at Maghaberry. Gerry is not a member of any organization but the political prisoners have welcomed Gerry as a ‘guest’ on the republican wing and have advised him not to take part in their struggle for health reasons. Since the’ dirty protest’ by more than a dozen prisoners, Gerry’s cell was not cleaned. The prison regime are planning to continue this brutal 23-24 lockup every day and night and have continued to batter the prisoners almost daily. Another prisoner has been found dead in his cell at Maghaberry since.

BEAT THE THE FASCIST CENSORS, RE-SHARE WITH YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER.

SUPPORT OR P.O.W.s WHITELINE PICKET

 
 

    
 
 
POW protests in Derry will now be held on Shipquay street every fortnight starting this Saturday at 2.00pm due to the escalation of torture and brutality inflicted on Republican POWs by sectarian screws representing the British Tory government. End the human rights abuses in Maghaberry! End the torture!
 
 

    

NAZI INTERNMENT REGIME IN MAGHABERRY CONCENTRATION CAMP OCCUPIED IRELAND

POLITICAL INTERNMENT & TORTURE OCCUPIED IRELAND
 
 
The record of British Brutality in Ireland.
 

The European Commission of Human Rights has stated the methods used by the British in Occupied Ireland and they have; “considered the combined use of the five methods to amount to torture, on the grounds that (1) the intensity of the stress caused by techniques creating sensory deprivation “directly affects the personality physically and mentally”; and (2) “the systematic application of the techniques for the purpose of inducing a person to give information shows a clear resemblance to those methods of systematic torture which have been known over the ages..a modern system of torture falling into the same category as those systems.applied in previous times as a means of obtaining information and confessions.”

The British first introduced political internment in Long Kesh Concentration camp in occupied Ireland. The concentration camp called Long Kesh was where the British locked Irish people up just because they didnt like the look of them, they were never charged with a crime nor did they ever get their day in court, as no charges were ever made against these people, they were simply dragged of the road or from their homes and locked up for years without any legal due process. This camp only closed in the 1980s which was covered up by the British for several in renaming the place and calling it a prison. Today the British moved their interned Irish political prisoners of conscience, to what has now become the reality of Maghaberry Concentration Camp.

Currently the situation of Irish political prisoners in Maghaberry Concentration Camp is catastrophic and disturbing, which includes prisoners dying without proper medical attention. The political prisoners, including a recently politically interned female, declare the ongoing use of various forms of torture, rape and abuse, with political prisoners, brutally tortured, raped with a stick into the anus by British provoked sectarian drunken prison warders. Other Irish political prisoners have been raped with iron bars that were introduced into their anus, some of whom suffered massive hemorrhages. Other political prisoners now suffer from mental disorders after being brutally tortured, raped by drunken sectarian prison officers, forcefully inserting their fingers through the anus.

A petition to commence an immediate, impartial and independent investigation into the deplorable situation at Maghaberry Prison, before it is too late can be found at the link below. Please sign and re-distribute this article to your friends, as the British are censoring it on the internet and slowing down all distribution with intranets worldwide in all of their compliant states especially in all of Ireland and the Irish abroad.

http://www.irishfreedomcommittee.net/POWs/HR%20PETITION.pdf

BrianClarkenuj is based in Bangkok, Krung Thep, Thailand, and is Reporter for Allvoices
 
 
‘Hunger’, which looks at the last six weeks of the life of IRA hungerstriker Bobby Sands.

 
The European Commission of Human Rights has stated the methods used by the British in Occupied Ireland and they have; “considered the combined use of the five methods to amount to torture, on the grounds that (1) the intensity of the stress caused by techniques creating sensory deprivation “directly affects the personality physically and mentally”; and (2) “the systematic application of the techniques for the purpose of inducing a person to give information shows a clear resemblance to those methods of systematic torture which have been known over the ages..a modern system of torture falling into the same category as those systems.applied in previous times as a means of obtaining information and confessions.”The British first introduced political internment in Long Kesh Concentration camp in occupied Ireland. The concentration camp called Long Kesh was where the British locked Irish people up just because they didnt like the look of them, they were never charged with a crime nor did they ever get their day in court, as no charges were ever made against these people, they were simply dragged of the road or from their homes and locked up for years without any legal due process. This camp only closed in the 1980s which was covered up by the British for several in renaming the place and calling it a prison. Today the British moved their interned Irish political prisoners of conscience, to what has now become the reality of Maghaberry Concentration Camp.

Currently the situation of Irish political prisoners in Maghaberry Concentration Camp is catastrophic and disturbing, which includes prisoners dying without proper medical attention. The political prisoners, including a recently politically interned female, declare the ongoing use of various forms of torture, rape and abuse, with political prisoners, brutally tortured, raped with a stick into the anus by British provoked sectarian drunken prison warders. Other Irish political prisoners have been raped with iron bars that were introduced into their anus, some of whom suffered massive hemorrhages. Other political prisoners now suffer from mental disorders after being brutally tortured, raped by drunken sectarian prison officers, forcefully inserting their fingers through the anus.

A petition to commence an immediate, impartial and independent investigation into the deplorable situation at Maghaberry Prison, before it is too late can be found at the link below. Please sign and re-distribute this article to your friends, as the British are censoring it on the internet and slowing down all distribution with intranets worldwide in all of their compliant states especially in all of Ireland and the Irish abroad.

http://www.irishfreedomcommittee.net/POWs/HR%20PETITION.pdf

BrianClarkenuj is based in Bangkok, Krung Thep, Thailand, and is Reporter for Allvoices
 
 
 
  • I sent a lengthy email today to the Helsinki Commission. One of their responsibilities is overseeing Human Rights in Europe. Please send an email and tell them Brendan’s human rights are being abused, as he is being denied adequate medical care. The Brits and the prison are being untruthful about this situation. The email address is:
    pa-usosce@state.gov
  •  

    prisonsofshame.wordpress.com

    Latest News – Brendan is 84 pound at the min and his morphine has been increased to 15mg after a nurse hurt him trying to move him in the bed. They have said the end of july to facilitate the psephologist coming over from england. And we have been told they still havnt found anywhere to house this
 
 

MURDERED 13 Year Old Hamza Alkhatib

Coat of arms of Lebanon
Image via Wikipedia
 

 
In this photo:
This my dear comrades is Hamza Alkhatib, a 13 year-old Syrian boy, he was tortured to death by the barbaric security forces of the syrian regime, he was shot, his penis was cut off, and inhumanly disfigured!! This is the regime of Bashar Al Assad and the Baath party in Syria!!
 
More than 30 kids have been killed, today an 11 year old girl was killed, some of them were shot in the head, I have posted some pics before, and many people are being skinned alive, those who are shot and die quickly are the lucky ones, those who are injured or captured are tortured like hell!
 
Hey didn’t Obama and Hillary Clitler say that they were launching airstrikes against Qaddafi‘s forces to protect the Libyan people from their brutal leader? They also said the U.S. would protect people from brutal dictators wherever the acts of violence occured??? Where is the condemnation let alone any sanctions and/or strikes????Hypocrites in Washington????? SHOCKER!!!!!!!! 
 
Yes dear, you have seen and heard of nothing yet, we here in Lebanon know this regime, it has killed and tortured many of us aswell as Syrians who oppose it, in 1982 they destroyed the city of Hama in Syria, killing more than 40,000 in brutal ways, and there are still tens of thousands who have been missing since then!! We need a whole encyclopedia to document the atrocities that this regime has committed!!
 
 
 
 
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