Britain cannot rely on US torture assurances

Britain should no longer rely on US assurances that it does not use torture on terrorism suspects, an influential committee of MPs said in a report released yesterday.

Britain had previously taken those assurances on face value but after the CIA acknowledged "waterboarding" three detainees, Britain should change its stance, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said in its annual report on human rights.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband told Parliament in April he thought the technique, where a suspect is tied down on a board and water is poured over his or her hooded face in a form of simulated drowning, amounted to torture.

US President George W. Bush vetoed legislation in March that would have banned the CIA from using the technique.

"Given the clear differences in definition, the UK can no longer rely on US assurances that it does not use torture and we recommend that the government does not rely on such assurances in the future," the MPs said in their report.

Britain is a signatory to a UN convention barring the extradition of a person to another state where there are substantial grounds for believing that they would be in danger of being subjected to torture.