II. British Involvement in Cases of Torture in Pakistan

The following are accounts of torture and other ill-treatment of five UK nationals in Pakistan which took place between 2004 and 2007 in which British officials and agents were complicit. Similar allegations surround the torture or mistreatment in Pakistan of another three British citizens whose cases are not documented here. It is impossible to verify whether such abusive cooperation between Britain and Pakistan is still continuing or whether it was limited to these individuals.

These accounts are based on detailed statements from victims and their lawyers. The details were cross-checked with information from government and intelligence officials from Pakistan and the United Kingdom. The allegations of torture made by the individuals discussed below are credible and consistent with scores of other accounts provided to the organization by victims of torture by Pakistan's intelligence agencies.[16]

In these five cases, British officials and agents first colluded with illegal detention by the Pakistan authorities and then took the collusion further by repeatedly interviewing or passing questions to the detainees between or during torture sessions. The case of Salahuddin Amin, a British citizen convicted in the UK in 2007 for plotting attacks against targets including London's Ministry of Sound nightclub, is illustrative. Amin says that while in Pakistani custody for ten months beginning in March 2004 he was met by British intelligence officials on almost a dozen occasions between sessions of torture.

Zeeshan Siddiqui, another British citizen, was detained in Pakistan in 2005 and tortured by the ISI-Pakistan's main civilian intelligence service-while being interrogated over his alleged

 

Salahuddin Amin © 2007 Getty Images                                                        

 

Rangzieb Ahmed© 2008 AFP

        

Rear view of the Karachi headquarters of the Intelligence Bureau. An individual, referred toas "ZZ" in this report, was allegedly detained and tortured in thisbuilding.Itis walking distance from the British Deputy High Commission in Karachi. © 2009 Private

Rashid Rauf © 2006 Reuters

membership of al Qaeda. He reports being beaten, chained, injected with drugs, and threatened with sexual abuse. British intelligence officials, who he says visited him, must have known from visible injuries that he had been mistreated.

Rangzieb Ahmed, from Rochdale, says that following his arrest in August 2006 he was beaten with sticks, whipped with electric cables, and deprived of sleep. Over a three-day period, he says, his fingernails were pulled out as ISI officials interrogated him. In his eventual trial in the UK in 2008, he was convicted of being an al Qaeda member and of directing terrorism. Crucially, at his trial the government did not deny defense claims that MI5 sent the ISI questions to put to Ahmed during interrogation and that MI5 questioned him while he was in ISI custody.

What is most disturbing about these accounts is that the British government knew full well the techniques the ISI and Pakistani law enforcement agencies use in interrogations, particularly in terror cases.

Salahuddin Amin

Salahuddin Amin, a UK citizen from Edgware, was convicted in the UK in April 2007 in the so-called "Crevice" trial for plotting attacks against London's Ministry of Sound nightclub and other sites. Amin was effectively deported to the UK in February 2005 after ten months of unlawful detention by the ISI in Pakistan. Amin's first person account of his treatment was provided to Human Rights Watch through his lawyers.

Amin alleges that he was tortured repeatedly through 2004 and forced into making false confessions. While in Pakistan, he was never charged with an offense. On his release he was coerced into leaving Pakistan and then arrested upon arrival at Heathrow airport.

Pakistani intelligence officers told Human Rights Watch that Amin's account of his detention, torture and meetings with alleged UK and US intelligence personnel are "essentially accurate." These sources said that Amin's was a "high pressure" case and that the UK and US governments' desire for information from him was "insatiable." The sources added that both governments' agents who were "party" to Amin's detention were "perfectly aware that we were using all means possible to extract information from him and were grateful that we were doing so."[17]

Amin's account of his treatment, including the role played by UK and US agents, is highly credible. His description of his torture is consistent with our findings in other cases involving the ISI. As described, it seems extremely unlikely that UK and US authorities were unaware of Amin's torture and ill-treatment in ISI custody.

Amin handed himself in to the ISI in Rawalpindi in April 2004 after an ISI officer, a family friend, had approached members of his family to say that MI5 wanted him detained and questioned, and that if he didn't hand himself in other relatives would be taken instead. Amin was driven to a detention center in the Sadar district of the city, where, he says, he was hooded, handcuffed, and shackled.

Throughout his ordeal, Amin said, it was made clear to him that his detention was explicitly requested by the British and they were aware of the torture, something that was explained to him at his very first interrogation, by a man who described himself as the Inspector General (IG):

He (...) told me that the Pakistani government had nothing against me and I was arrested at the request of the British authorities. He said that as soon as the British cleared me they would let me go. For the next ten months I got a constant reminder of this by different officers. Another thing that he said to me was that they were taking much more from the British and Americans than there were giving them.[18]

For two days, between interrogation sessions, he was placed in a cell with five bright white lights permanently switched on, and the guards would rattle the padlock on the door from time to time to ensure he could not sleep. On the third day, after being shown photographs of a number of friends from Britain, he says his interrogators began to beat and whip him.

The IG spoke first of all and he said to me that they had been really nice with me up to then but their behavior was going to change because all I had told them were lies. I replied that I had told them the honest truth. The colonel shouted in a really loud voice and said 'You bloody choot piece' [a woman's private part]. Do you think that you are the brigadier's nephew and we will leave you?' He ordered a guard who was standing outside to get rubber lashes.

When the guard brought the lashes, the colonel from the IG took the big one and DIG [Deputy Inspector General] took the slightly smaller one, and they both started hitting me around by back, shoulders and thighs with full force. They were constantly hitting me and swearing at me. I was in extreme pain. I felt as if my skin was ripping apart. I broke down and started crying...

They then threatened Amin with an electric drill.

I was told to face the wall, and one of the interrogators told the guard: 'Drill another hole in his buttocks.'

The guard switched on the drill, and touched Amin's backside. At this point he appears to have passed out. When he came around the questioning continued, his interrogators whipping his head.

Amin said he was forced to write and rewrite confessions over many months in the light of these interrogations. Often the ISI used violence-lashing him and hitting him if they found "inconsistencies" in his account.

He first met British security officials some 15 days after he was detained. Amin described to Human Rights Watch being taken from his cell, blindfolded and handcuffed, and driven for around 20 minutes. He was led into a building and into an air-conditioned room. The individual who appeared to be directing his torture, a man called Major Rahman, was also in the room.

When my hood was taken off I saw two white men standing in front of me. I got slightly nervous when I saw them because these two were the first two white people I was seeing in ISI custody. I was trying to figure out if they were Americans or British. One of them looked at major and asked if my handcuffs could be taken off. The guard was told to take my cuffs off. I gathered he was British and not American. He introduced himself as Matt from MI5 and his colleague as Richard. His tone was very friendly. Matt was a senior officer but Richard seemed more like an office boy and he just took notes. After introductions, they took their notebooks and pens out. Matt had a list of questions which I soon realized were from previous interrogations by the major. These questions were about all the false confessions I had made...

Amin told Human Rights Watch that he did not tell the British officials he was being tortured because the major was there. "I was frightened of him, of course, and it was pretty clear that they were all involved in it."

Matt also had some new questions which the Major hadn't asked me yet, and once the British had gone the Major interrogated me about those questions. No matter how much the British government and the agents denied getting involved in the torture, and my mistreatment in any way, I know for a fact that they were fully involved in it. If all the notes from the Major and all the notes from the British and the list of questions from the British are put together, it wouldn't take very long to see a pattern. Another thing that would be helpful in completing this jigsaw puzzle is the notes taken by the Americans.

Amin describes making many trips to that same building over the next four months to meet the British officers. In addition to "Matt" and "Richard," he met a bearded man in his 30s who called himself "Chris," and a long-haired woman in her 20s who did not give her name. A pattern emerged-Pakistani interrogators would interrogate Amin under torture, and then he would be driven to the air-conditioned building, where MI5 would ask him the same questions again. Sometimes the MI5 officers would come to the ISI prison to question him there.

When there was enough information gathered by the Major the British would come and confirm it, and put new questions to me, about which I would later get interrogated about and beaten by the Major. The lashes weren't present in the presence of the British officers but the Major was present in every single meeting.[19]

Amin also describes an incident where he was tortured and threatened with rape:

I heard the Major's voice. He asked me as usual, 'Gulloo, how are you?' I said, 'Fine,' as usual. Then he asked me if I knew Abu Munzir's friend or cousin, Abu Anas [alleged al Qaeda operative] in Belgium. I was still cuffed, shackled and hooded. I didn't know anybody by that name, therefore I said no. As soon as I denied knowing him the Major started shouting and swearing. He said to me, 'Bhen Chod [sister fucker], you started lying to us again. Today we will really show you how we skin people alive.'

He told the guards to strip me naked and hang me. This was the scariest moment of my life and I remember that I started shaking so badly with fear that the guard who was trying to take my handcuffs off was having difficulties to put the key in the slot and was telling me to keep my hand steady. Once the cuffs were taken off the guard undid the buttons of my kameez and took it off. My shalwar was pulled down to my ankles. I was almost dragged to one end of the room and whilst I was facing the wall my arms were tied to leather straps that were fixed on the wall. The straps were pulled up so much that my feet were almost off the floor. The hood was still over my head and I was beaten severely with lashes by two people and one of them was the Major...

The Major threatened to rape me with the wooden handle again but this time I was in a more vulnerable situation and I thought he was really doing to do it but thank God he didn't. I broke down in tears and was screaming with the pain of lashes and the humiliation. The Major was saying to me, 'Would you lie to us again?' and I was just saying, 'I'm sorry, I won't lie to you.'

This session continued with further beatings until the major said to his colleagues,

'Leave the Bhen Chod hanging here,' and they all left. I was in extreme pain, confused and terrified. I didn't have a clue what I was going to say to them. I was constantly praying to God to help me. I was standing there for a very long time and the pain in my shoulders was increasing by the second. My shoulder pain started to overtake the pain of lashes. I was feeling as if both my shoulders would soon be dislocated. Then two guards came in and untied me. They took my hood and blindfold off and told me to get dressed. Both arms had gone numb and had no strength left in them, and I was having difficulties getting dressed.[20]

Salahuddin Amin also describes seeing another detainee who appeared to have been tortured:

The prisoner from Quetta was called Abu Musab al-Balochi and was the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks]. He was treated very harshly from the first day. He was put in the last cell away from everybody where he was left handcuffed and shackled. He wasn't given a mattress to sleep on and had to sleep on the bare floor. He was taken away for interrogation every day. A few weeks after he arrived, he was taken away in the morning and he didn't come back in the evening. He returned two days later, looking really weak and was almost dragging his feet on the floor. He later told us he had been hung upside down and tortured.[21]

Zeeshan Siddiqui

Zeeshan Siddiqui, a UK citizen from Hounslow, London, was arrested in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province on May 15, 2005 on suspicion of involvement in terrorism. The Pakistani authorities eventually charged him for being in possession of a forged Pakistani national identity card. In December 2005, he was acquitted of that charge,[22] before being deported to the United Kingdom in early January 2006.[23]In the UK, Siddiqui was initially placed in involuntary psychiatric care under the Mental Health Act. The UK government subsequently placed a control order on him. Siddiqui escaped the control order in September 2006 and has been missing since. In June 2007, the British authorities declared him an al Qaeda suspect.[24]

Human Rights Watch has not spoken to Siddiqui directly. However, an account of his treatment in detention was initially provided to Human Rights Watch at the time of his trial in Pakistan by his Pakistani lawyer, Mussarat Hilali. Hilali, a member of the nongovernmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, was recommended to Siddiqui's family by the British High Commission. On his return to the UK, Siddiqui gave consistent accounts of his torture to the media, including BBC Radio Four's news flagship, the Today Programme,[25] and NGOs.

Siddiqui said that on May 15, 2005, he was arrested by about 20 Pakistani security agents, shackled, hooded, his hands chained, and abused. Subsequently he was taken to the Intelligence Bureau (IB) interrogation center in Peshawar. Siddiqui provided the account below to his lawyer in Pakistan as well as a similar account to the London-based nongovernmental organization Cage Prisoners: [26]

Four men lay me down on my back on the floor and chained my hands to the floor and forced me to take tablets that were possibly Valium or a tranquilizer. They took me to another room and Mohammed Fahim Afridi [a man described by Siddiqui as someone who spoke with a British accent] came there and started to beat me with his fists. He was wearing rings and hit me with them on my face and head. This knocked out one of my corrective lenses. I was beaten for about 20 minutes and they kept dousing me with cold water. During this, two of the men pulled my tracksuit pants and underpants down so that my penis was exposed. Someone else inspected my penis and told everyone I was circumcised. Then I was taken back to the interrogation room and chained to the floor and I was injected with something and then I passed out.

The next day, I remember sitting in a chair in the interrogation room. My head was bleeding onto the wall and they said I was dirtying the wall. I collapsed. I passed out. I woke up chained to a hospital bed by one arm. The other arm had a drip in it. I pulled my arm and ripped the drip needle out of my arm and it started bleeding. I vomited all over the sheets but no one cleaned it. Then two guards forced a feeding tube into my nose. Another man grabbed my legs and they fitted a catheter in me. I was kept in the hospital from around 16 May for ten or twelve days.[27]

Siddiqui reported that the catheter was used as an instrument of torture that was pulled out roughly to cause him pain. He was not allowed to use a toilet and forced to keep using the hospital bed that had become soiled with his urine. Siddiqui also alleged that he was threatened with sexual abuse during this period, but this was not actually carried out. On May 26, 2005 or thereabouts, Siddiqui said, he was transferred to Peshawar Central Prison.[28]He reported that he was heavily drugged during this time at the hospital and could not say for certain whether those around him were medical or security personnel. But he subsequently identified the facility as the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar.

Siddiqui said that on July 4, 2005, he was returned to Lady Reading Hospital by IB officials and detained there overnight. The following morning, he saw many of the individuals who had previously mistreated and tortured him congregating at the hospital. An order was given that he be unshackled. At this point, according to Siddiqui, four British men entered the room and shook hands with everybody, including him. They asked him if he was Zeeshan Siddiqui and he confirmed his identity.

Siddiqui told his lawyer in Pakistan that this was the first of six interviews with British intelligence officers. He alleges that these meetings took place while he was in a semi-coherent and traumatized state, and that Pakistani agents were also present. His physical condition was poor, and his lawyer insists that clear marks of violence and torture would have been visible to the British security officials, but they did nothing to intervene. By December 2005, Siddiqui's condition was serious enough for a Pakistani court to order an immediate corneal graft to prevent further damage to his eye.[29] Though his first interrogation took place in early July 2005 (days before the July 7, 2005 bombings in London), Siddiqui only gained consular access in mid-August.

The BBC asked Siddiqui how he could be sure that he had been interviewed by British intelligence officials. He replied:

The first time they came to see me they told me that there's people in the embassy who are available to help people like you, who have been imprisoned and detained, but we want you to know that we are not those people, we are in fact people from British intelligence.[30]

The broad outline of Zeeshan Siddiqui's account has been confirmed to Human Rights Watch by former senior officials in the IB and the Crime Investigation Department (CID) of the police. Human Rights Watch presented Siddiqui's account to former Pakistani intelligence and police officials involved in the case, who described it as "essentially accurate" and part of "standard practices."[31] Speaking on condition of anonymity, Pakistani security officials confirmed that Siddiqui was arrested on the basis of a tip-off from British intelligence (MI6) and principally at their request.[32]A Pakistani intelligence source confirmed the date of the first and subsequent meetings between British intelligence and Siddiqui, but could not specify the number of visits.[33]

Former IB and CID officials who dealt with Siddiqui told Human Rights Watch that MI6 was aware at all times that Siddiqui was being "processed" in the "traditional way," but British "emotions were running high then" and hence the British were "effectively" interrogating Siddiqui even as the IB processed him. When Human Rights Watch pointed out that much of Siddiqui's mistreatment occurred before the July 7 London bombings, including his interrogation by British security agents, a Pakistan source responded:

Yes, but emotions run high all the time in this business. But because no one could prove or get him to admit anything useful, that is probably why the green light was given to bring him into the [legal] system.

The former Pakistani officials speaking to Human Rights Watch did not say or imply, however, that British security personnel had themselves tortured or otherwise physically harmed Siddiqui. [34]

ZZ (name withheld)

ZZ[35], a UK citizen, was born in London in 1981. At the end of his fourth year as a medical student in London, he was advised to intern at a hospital other than the one affiliated with his medical school, preferably overseas. ZZ arrived as an intern in Pakistan shortly after the July 7, 2005 suicide bombings in London.

According to information from ZZ, while dining with colleagues at a local restaurant on the evening of August 20, three armed men in plainclothes abducted him at gunpoint, shoving him into a waiting car and driving away. When ZZ's family in London learned from relatives in Pakistan that ZZ had been abducted, they immediately contacted the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the Metropolitan Police, as well as their local member of parliament. The FCO and the police told the family that they did not know who was holding ZZ or why.

Family members contacted Human Rights Watch at the time of his disappearance as they attempted to trace his whereabouts. Relatives in Karachi had received threatening telephone calls, which suggested that silence was the best guarantee of ZZ's safe return home. However, ZZ's father traveled to Karachi, and after nearly two months he was able to retrieve his son. ZZ's father told Human Rights Watch that he learned that his son was being held by the Intelligence Bureau (IB). He then approached the IB and in October 2005 was told that his son would be released. He said:

I was told to wait at a particular location in Karachi. A van pulled up. There was one uniformed police officer and several other men in plain clothes. Once I got in, they had a brief discussion about whether I should be hooded or not. They decided not to hood me so long as I did not look out. I was driven into a compound and taken into a room, where four intelligence officers apologized to me. I was then introduced to a man who identified himself as the director of the IB, who also apologized to me for the 'mistake' they had made in picking up my son.[36]

ZZ was then brought into the room. He and his father flew back to London the following day. ZZ's father told Human Rights Watch that as they were driven out of the building, he looked out and saw the British Deputy High Commission across the road.

ZZ's father conveyed his son's account to Human Rights Watch.

He was detained at just one location throughout his detention; the same place I had picked him up from. He told me he was beaten, whipped, sleep-deprived and forced to witness the torture of other detainees. He was questioned only about the July 7 attacks on London and his involvement in the attacks. Towards the end of his period in detention and torture, my son told me he was questioned by two British intelligence officers.[37]

Retired IB officials have confirmed to Human Rights Watch that ZZ was detained at the IB provincial headquarters in Karachi. These officials, speaking independently on condition of anonymity, were categorical in their assertion that British security personnel were aware at all times that ZZ was being held and where he was being held. They also said that British security officials interviewed ZZ towards the end of his detention.

One of the former Pakistani security officials told Human Rights Watch:          

I do not know if the British knew we had given him a good thrashing and 'the treatment.' But they know perfectly well we do not garland terrorism suspects nor honor them. We do what we do and it's not pretty. And with them breathing down our necks for information from Runnymede [the British Deputy High Commission in Karachi is otherwise known as Runnymede Estate] and the ISI eager to take over our turf and our suspect, we would naturally be keen to produce results. Results are not produced by having chats with the suspect.[38]          

ZZ's father told Human Rights Watch that in the course of his search he repeatedly contacted the UK Deputy High Commission in Karachi. "I felt they were uninterested in finding my son and were generally unhelpful," he said. ZZ was held for almost two months about five minutes walk from the British Deputy High Commission.

Rangzieb Ahmed

Rangzieb Ahmed, a UK citizen from Greater Manchester who insists he went to Pakistan to engage in earthquake relief, was arrested on August 20, 2006, en route to Islamabad from Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. He was held under the Security of Pakistan Act 1952 for alleged links to the al Qaeda network.[39]On August 31, 2007, the Federal Board of Review (FBR) of Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered his release, on the grounds that he had been arrested andheld without charge for over a year.[40]

In the early hours of September 7, 2007, Ahmed, whom the Greater Manchester Police declared to be an al Qaeda "mastermind," was sent to the UK via British Airways.[41]Arrested on arrival in the UK, he was tried before the Manchester Crown Court for organizing a terrorist cell. He was convicted on December 17, 2008 of directing terrorism[42]and sentenced to life imprisonment.

The information from Ahmed provided below is drawn from statements provided to Human Rights Watch through intermediaries while he was still imprisoned in Pakistan, and is generally consistent with his subsequent statements at trial.

Ahmed claims that after he was picked up by around 15 men in plain clothes, he was blindfolded, masked, handcuffed, shackled and, with a blanket over his head, driven for at least three hours to a location he subsequently believed to be in Islamabad:

Two men came into the room and started questioning me, and asked who had sent me to Pakistan. I responded that I had come to Pakistan by myself. At this, they started to hit me around the head very hard for about half an hour. After this, I was locked in an empty cell. It was totally bare. I was shackled and handcuffed at all times in the empty cell. The handcuffs were removed for meals only and the shackles when my captors decided I could change clothes. I was only given lentils and stale bread for food.[43]

Ahmed described his interrogation.

I was interrogated repeatedly with and without violence many times. Initially, these interrogations were broken up in two-hour sessions and there were three or four sessions each day run by different people. Usually, there was a very short break between each session-a few minutes. During the breaks I would usually be taken back and locked up in the cell. One set of interrogators would beat me and be violent and abusive and the other would be nice insisting that I confess in order to save myself from getting beaten.[44]

During the first week of detention,

I was repeatedly hit with a stick and a weapon made from the tread of a tire and fixed to a stick at one end. I was beaten with a stick on the soles of my feet. They would push me to the floor and pull my feet up on to a chair and hold them there while they hit the soles of my feet with the stick. I was also beaten around the head and on my arms with the stick. The weapon made from a tire was used to beat me on my buttocks. I was also hit with an electrical cable.

During this period, especially in the first five days, I was not allowed to sleep. The interrogators woke me up and threatened to chain me to the door to prevent me sleeping when they saw me falling asleep.

The interrogation room was monitored with cameras though I could not tell if they just recorded or allowed others to watch the interrogation as it happened. I believe the interrogations were definitely monitored because slips of paper would be brought into the room with messages that seemed like questions or advice for the interrogators.[45]

According to Ahmed, the torture intensified during his second week in detention. His interrogators, he alleges, accused him of communicating on his mobile phone with members of Islamist groups in Lahore. When he denied the link, Ahmed says his interrogators began extracting his fingernails.

I was held down on the ground by five of them. One used pliers to pull a fingernail from my left hand. They would pull a bit of the nail out, ask me questions and then inject me with painkillers for temporary relief. Then the questions and the pulling would begin again. This went on for eight days. Over this period, they completely pulled out three fingernails from the little finger, my ring finger and my middle finger of the left hand.[46]

It was shortly after this incident, in September 2006 or thereabouts, that Ahmed says he was interrogated by British officials:

At this time, British officials came and questioned me, they said they were from the British government, not the embassy. They showed me photos of people they wanted me to identify. According to Ahmed, the interviews by British officials occurred within days of the torture. 

While Ahmed does not claim that he was tortured by the British, this interrogation is likely to have been conducted with his bearing clear and visible signs of torture, including the missing fingernails. Also during this period, Ahmed reports being shown documents that stated he was being held under the Security of Pakistan Act. Ahmed alleges that he was also interrogated several times by officials from the United States.

Ahmed reports that he became ill and collapsed sometime in early October due to the torture and harsh conditions of his detention and was twice moved to a more comfortable "safe-house". But each time, he would return from the safe-house to the same dismal conditions. Sometime in November, Ahmed says, he collapsed again and from then on was kept in the relatively better conditions of the safe-house. He was only sent to the interrogation center, he says, for specific interrogations during which he does not allege serious ill-treatment of the nature described above.

According to Ahmed, he was physically presented before the Federal Board of Review (FBR) of the Supreme Court for the first time in December 2006 and the court authorized his detention for a further three months. He was presented before the FBR a second time on April 12, 2007, and ordered transferred to jail. The intelligence service then handed him over to the police and he was incarcerated in Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.

The Supreme Court's FBR ordered Ahmed's immediate release on August 31, 2007. By the time this release was ordered, Ahmed had been in custody for just over a year without being charged with any offense.[47] He was kept in custody until September 7, 2007 when he was taken under guard to Islamabad airport. Escorted by individuals from unspecified British law enforcement agencies, he arrived at Heathrow airport and was arrested upon arrival.[48]

A Pakistani human rights group informed the BBC of Ahmed's incarceration in June 2007 and questioned British officials. Aidan Liddle, head of public affairs at the British High Commission in Islamabad told the BBC: "If he is a British national we will provide all possible assistance. But if he's a dual national our hands are tied." The BBC provided the High Commission with Ahmed's passport details and his contention that he was not a dual but a mono-national holding only British citizenship.[49] Subsequently, the head of the UK consular section in Islamabad, Helen Rawlins, told the court during Ahmed's UK trial that she learned of his detention only in May 2007.[50]

On September 20, 2007, The Guardian reported that the FCO confirmed that though consular officials had been denied access to Ahmed by the Pakistani authorities, other officials from the High Commission in Islamabad were allowed to see him.[51]The spokesperson failed to specify who these "other officials" were.

During Ahmed's trial, the British government did not dispute in open court that MI5 and the Greater Manchester Police sent questions to the ISI to be put to Ahmed during interrogation and that MI5 officers questioned Ahmed while he was in ISI custody. It is thus clear that they were well aware of his detention. All the while, consular officials at the British High Commission in Islamabad failed or were unable to see him.

Human Rights Watch spoke to members of Pakistan's law enforcement agencies involved in processing Ahmed at various stages of his detention. These sources, from both civilian and military agencies, confirmed the "overall authenticity" of his claims, including the allegation that British intelligence services were aware of his detention and treatment at "all times." [52]

Rashid Rauf

Birmingham-born Rashid Rauf, who held dual Pakistani and British citizenship, arrived in Pakistan in 2002. At the request of the UK government, Pakistani authorities arrested Rauf in August 2006 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up several airliners originating in the United Kingdom. Rauf was held in Rawalpindi and charged with terrorism-related offences.

Rauf's family told Human Rights Watch that he had reported being beaten and tortured while in custody. "He was taken off a bus and beaten very badly," said a family member.[53]

Hashmat Habib, his lawyer in Pakistan, told Human Rights Watch that he had seen scars all over Rauf's back and torso that indicated violence. Habib only had access to Rauf some six months after he was detained. At first he was held in what he called a "grave cell,"as it was like a coffin. Habib said that Rauf told him that he had been questioned by Westerners, but that he did not specify their nationality.[54]

In December 2007, the prosecution in Pakistan withdrew its case against Rauf and the Anti-Terrorism Court I at Rawalpindi ordered his same day release. Rauf's relatives told Human Rights Watch that upon hearing the news, they immediately went to the jail to collect him but were told by the authorities that he was not being freed. According to Rauf's uncle, Akhtar, Mujahid Hussain, a senior Islamabad police official, indicated that Rauf was being transferred to the UK. Another relative told Human Rights Watch that Rauf had made contact with his family from the city of Bhawalpur in Punjab province, about 700 km from Islamabad, and told them, "They are taking me away from here at 7 p.m., but I don't know where."[55]

Hashmat Habib, the Pakistani lawyer representing Rauf, told Human Rights Watch that no legal formalities or paperwork had been followed for the transfer to the UK and it was unclear under what law, if any, Rauf was being sent there. Any transfer under such circumstances would be irregular and have no legal basis, said Habib, because Pakistan has no extradition treaty with the UK.[56] However, the interior minister, Aftab Khan Sherpao, reportedly had said Pakistan would consider deporting Rauf if an extradition request was made.[57] At the time, Human Rights Watch spoke to the Islamabad police authorities, who denied any such attempt. Human Rights Watch also informed the local and international media that an attempt to surreptitiously transfer Rauf appeared to be underway. He was not transferred.

On December 17, 2007, Rauf "escaped" from custody in broad daylight from an Islamabad courthouse while being watched by at least a dozen Pakistani police officials. At the time his lawyer described his escape as "very suspicious" because it had happened at a time when the "British government was trying to extradite him."[58]Both Pakistani and British intelligence sources told Human Rights Watch that Rauf was beaten and mistreated while in the custody of the ISI. While Pakistani intelligence sources maintain that the British were aware that Rauf was being "dealt with" by the ISI with an "iron hand," the British source did not accept that any mistreatment occurred with British complicity or knowledge, but added that the he was tortured so badly that it was a "disaster" that made any "successful prosecution in Britain most unlikely."[59]

According to Pakistani and Western intelligence sources, Rauf was killed in a US drone missile attack on the village of Alikhel, in the North Waziristan agency of Pakistan's tribal areas on November 22, 2008.[60] To date, neither Rauf's body nor any other corroborating evidence to support this claim has been provided by Western or Pakistani authorities.