Murnaghan Interview with Malcolm Rifkind, MP, Chair of Intelligence Committee

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Britain has a history of torture that much is true, from the Tower of London during the reign of Elizabeth I through to the witch burnings as recently as the 18th century but what about now?  Specifically have British intelligence services had direct involvement in the torture of terrorist suspects since 9/11?  In a moment I’ll speak to the senior Conservative MP and Shadow Home Secretary David Davis and get his views but first I am joined by the former Foreign Secretary and Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a very good morning to you Sir Malcolm.  Now your committee, you say you want to see what the Americans have discovered about British involvement, how are you going to go about that?

MALCOLM RIFKIND: Well this is a major United States report and so we are requesting, both our colleague on the Senate Intelligence Committee Senator Feinstein but also it will ultimately be the United States government that will decide whether some of the material that has been redacted  in the American report can be shown to us.  We are not expecting, we don’t need to see everything that’s been redacted, what we need to see are the bits that might refer to the United Kingdom.

DM: It’s a two-step process though, will we see it, will the public see it as well or will it stop with your committee or does that depend on what you see?

MALCOLM RIFKIND: It depends on what has been redacted because if they apply the same … in Britain we would only agree to material being redacted from our reports if the Prime Minister was able to convince us that there were legitimate national security reasons why it shouldn’t be published and if it were done for reasons of political embarrassment we would refuse to agree to it being redacted.

DM: So there’s no …

MALCOLM RIFKIND: If the Americans apply the same criteria then there shouldn’t be a problem.

DM: But there’s no guarantee that if you see those redacted parts concerning Britain, there’s no guarantee that they are made public and you have to make a judgement on that.

MALCOLM RIFKIND: And that has to be right, of course, because …

DM: But then there will be that suspicion, Sir Malcolm, isn’t there that there is plenty to hide?

MALCOLM RIFKIND: No, at the moment the government are saying that they know what has been redacted, the British government are saying we know what we asked to be redacted and that was purely for operational matters which would be against national security to publish.  Now we are not part of the government, we are independent of the government, if we find that that’s not true we will say so and we will say so quite clearly and explicitly.

DM: I want to talk to you about that and your powers, are you envious of the powers that that Senate Committee has?  Do you look across the Atlantic and say my goodness me, I wish we had that ability to delve so deep?

MALCOLM RIFKIND: We now do have those powers.  There has been criticisms of the ISC in the past because up till two years ago the criticism would have been justified because at that time all we could do was ask the intelligence agencies will you please show us your papers and they were not under a legal obligation to do so.  Two things have changed since then: first of all by Act of Parliament the intelligence agencies would be breaking the law if they do not supply us with all the documents and files that we request and secondly, we now have the unprecedented power, our own staff go to the Headquarters of MI5, MI6, GCHQ and can personally inspect the files to make sure nothing has been left out.

DM: So more or less all the powers because you know there have been calls and there are called for a judge-led inquiry, are you saying no need, we have those powers?

MALCOLM RIFKIND: Well it’s up to the government but we think it’s unnecessary.  First of all we are doing the job already, for the last two months we have five full time staff working full time through the thousands of documents, that work is already in-hand and this is going to be our top priority.

DM: And presumably you want to talk to people don’t you?  You want to talk to the variety of Home Secretaries, Foreign Secretaries and Prime Minister who were around at the time.

MALCOLM RIFKIND: Well once we have looked through the existing files, the written material, then we will come to a judgement as to which people, first of all who in the intelligence agencies we wish to take evidence from, secondly either current ministers or former ministers who have had information on these matters.

DM: And you have the right to compel them to attend?

MALCOLM RIFKIND: So far as the intelligence agencies are concerned they cannot refuse if we require them to come.

DM: What about politicians?

MALCOLM RIFKIND: In theory ministers could decline to come but of course it would be a huge scandal if they did refuse to.  In practice when we request them to come to give evidence to our committee they always say yes.

DM: And where does your committee stand on this issue of water boarding?  That much we know, water boarding has gone on …

MALCOLM RIFKIND: I can tell you right away, it’s torture.

DM: It’s torture, right, so therefore could prosecutions, international prosecutions flow?

MALCOLM RIFKIND: Well thankfully at this moment in time there have been no allegations that British intelligence people were themselves torturing, that has not been thankfully the allegation. The allegations are serious enough but they were complicit, that they were aware of what was going on and secondly, on the Libyan issue, they were actively involved in getting two people rendered back to Gaddafi’s prisons.  Now these are pretty serious so the question of prosecutions is for the Crown Prosecution Service not for politicians.

DM: But already established is on the American side of things, I’m talking about international prosecutions, there are grounds presumably to arrest certain American personnel should they travel outside the United States.

MALCOLM RIFKIND: Well that is for the legal authorities of the countries concerned.  We are concerned with the actions of the intelligence agencies and the politicians, we will produce a public report, very little of it will be redacted, we will try to avoid redactions.  In our report on Lee Rigby which was published a couple of weeks ago, people were surprised and impressed that we actually were able to reveal a huge amount about what the intelligence agencies do and how they do it and what they were aware of, so we will apply the same strict approach to publish as much as we possibly can and that will be most of what is in front of us.

DM: Sir Malcolm, very good to see you, thank you very much indeed for speaking to us, Sir Malcolm Rifkind there.