UNITED KINGDOM: MI5 - 'BLACK ARTS' LEARNED IN IRELAND NOW PRACTISED ON A GLOBAL STAGE

This week the United Kingdom Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, tried to defend the non-disclosure of US intelligence after the British courts, in one of its more craven judgements, caved into government pressure and refused to authorise the release of documents in the Binyam Mohamed case.

Miliband claimed in the House of Commons that disclosure of the documents against the wishes of the US authorities would cause "real and significant damage to the national security and international relations of this country".

However, as ever the truth will out and the real reason is the desire to protect the British Intelligence services against criminal charges because of their involvement in the interrogation of Binyam Mohammed whilst he was being subjected to torture of a barbaric and medieval type.

What this proves is that MI5 and its various contemporaries in the British establishment are still up to their old tricks. The brutal torture that was a feature of British operations in Ireland and which, despite purported restrictions, resurfaced again in Iraq and Afghanistan is still a feature of the British intelligence scene. It was hardly likely that it would be any different as many of those who cut their teeth in Ireland have now moved on to more senior positions in the Intelligence structure of the UK.

For all the talk of a 'reference to the Attorney General' it is unlikely that anyone in British Intelligence has anything to fear. After all in Ireland, they tortured, murdered and arranged, via surrogate gangs, bombings and robberies. No one was ever held to account and indeed some were promoted.

Their apprenticeship in Northern Ireland well served the 'spooks' of MI5 now practice their black arts on a global stage!

J B Moffatt Director of Information Celtic League

08/01/09