Foreign Secretary William Hague is facing calls to investigate whether MI6 officers briefed journalists on the rendition of a Libyan opposition activist, in breach of the Official Secrets Act.
Tory MP Andrew Tyrie, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition, said recent press reports on the alleged involvement of Labour former foreign secretary Jack Straw appeared to represent a breach by MI6 officers of their duty of confidentiality.
The case relates to the rendition in 2004 of Abdel Hakim Belhadj and his wife from Bangkok to Libya, where they say they were tortured by Colonel Gaddafi's security forces.
After papers were discovered last year in Tripoli suggesting MI6 played an active role in the rendition, Mr Straw – who had been foreign secretary at the time – denied authorising any such operation.
However, according to press reports last month, MI6 officers were said to have presented evidence to Mr Straw demonstrating that he had approved Mr Belhadj's rendition.
In a letter to Mr Hague, Mr Tyrie said: "These reports are attributed to 'well-placed sources'. The context suggests these sources may well be from within MI6.
"If so, this would represent staff from the intelligence agencies briefing the press. Such a briefing would be in breach of the Official Secrets Act.
"As the minister to whom MI6 reports, you will no doubt wish to establish whether such a briefing took place and, if so, take the appropriate disciplinary action."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article