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    Alternatives: Britain's unaccountable intelligence agencies could be held to account - here's how Archived Message

    Posted by sashimi on October 15, 2020, 9:05 am

    (quote)
    By Richard Norton-Taylor, 15 October 2020

    The need for proper scrutiny of the UK's security and intelligence
    agencies, such as MI5, MI6, GCHQ and the military's special forces, is
    becoming increasingly urgent. A number of practical measures would
    make these agencies more transparent and accountable to the public.

    ...

    Amid this concerning cross-party consensus, the need to make the
    British security agencies far more accountable and transparent is more
    urgent than ever, as demonstrated in the UK's sinister, indeed fatal,
    dealings with Libya.

    Salman Abedi, the Manchester Arena suicide bomber who killed 22 people
    in May 2017, had come to MI5's attention at least 18 times and had
    been seen associating with six MI5 "subjects of interest", the inquiry
    into the attack has been told.

    For reasons that remain unclear, Abedi did not feature on MI5's
    internal "priority indicator" until March 2017 during a "data-washing
    exercise". MI5 admitted to a "missed opportunity" when it failed to
    alert the police or the UK Border Force to question him when he
    returned from a trip to Libya on 22 May 2017, five days before the
    attack.

    "There is no question of secrecy being used to conceal failure", MI5's
    counsel, Cathryn McGahey QC, has told the inquiry. So what will
    secrecy conceal? Almost certainly, MI5's network of informers and how
    much MI5 (and other intelligence agencies, MI6 and GCHQ) knew about
    Abedi and his brother Hashem, who was sentenced in August to a minimum
    of 55 years for his role in the attack.

    This is not the only information MI5 is fighting to keep under
    wraps. Evidence relating to Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk, a former minister
    in Muammar Gaddafi's regime, is being withheld on grounds of "national
    security".

    Mabrouk is suspected of being heavily involved in the events leading
    to the killing in 1984 of police officer Yvonne Fletcher, during a
    demonstration outside the Libyan People's Bureau in central
    London. Mabrouk denies being involved.

    The evening before Fletcher was shot, GCHQ intercepted two messages,
    one telling the Libyans in the Bureau to "cover the streets of London
    with blood". The messages were not passed on to MI5 or the
    Metropolitan Police Special Branch until after the shooting.

    A few years earlier, Moussa Koussa, then head of the bureau, was
    deported for advocating the killing of Libyan dissidents in
    Britain. In 2004, as Gaddafi's intelligence chief, Koussa was MI6's
    key go-between during its secret abduction of two Libyan dissidents,
    Hakim Abdel Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi, and their families to Tripoli
    where they were subsequently tortured.

    That covert and unlawful rendition operation came to light only
    because of documents found in Koussa's Tripoli office that was
    destroyed by Nato's air strikes in 2011. For years, the then foreign
    secretary, Jack Straw, denied any British involvement in such
    operations, telling MPs in 2005: "There is simply no truth in the
    claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition full
    stop, because we never have been".

    The Libyan cases illustrate the pressing need for a fundamental
    shake-up of the way MI5, MI6, and GCHQ are scrutinised. The British
    parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), made up of MPs
    and peers vetted by the prime minister, has in recent reports
    criticised the agencies for making mistakes and "missed
    opportunities".

    After growing pressure from a few journalists, backbench MPs and
    lawyers, it found that in more than 200 cases, the intelligence
    agencies had colluded in "counter-terror" operations involving the
    mistreatment of suspects    . However, new guidance to security and
    intelligence officers (and military personnel) contains loopholes
    allowing them to continue to collude in torture    .

    The ISC was prevented by Theresa May, then prime minister, from
    questioning MI6 officers with first-hand knowledge of rendition
    operations, including those involving Libyans. May's successor,
    Boris Johnson, suppressed an ISC report on Russia's attempts to
    disrupt British politics, including the Brexit referendum, until after
    the 2019 election.

    When the report was finally published in July, it revealed that
    Britain's security and intelligence agencies failed to conduct any
    serious investigation into the attempts. The government "had not seen
    or sought evidence of successful interference in UK democratic
    processes"    , it said.
    (/quote)
    -- Cont'd at https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-10-15-transparency-britains-unaccountable-intelligence-agencies-could-be-held-to-account-heres-how/

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