David Miliband gave MI6 the green light to proceed with intelligence-gathering operations in countries where there was a possible risk of terrorism suspects being tortured, the Guardian has learned. During the three years Miliband served as foreign secretary, MI6 always consulted him personally before embarking on what a source described as "any particularly difficult" attempts to gain information from a detainee held by a country with a poor human rights record.
While Miliband blocked some operations, he is known to have given permission for others to proceed. Officers from MI5 are understood to have sought similar permission from a series of home secretaries in recent years.
Today, 24 hours before the Labour leadership election closed, Miliband took the unprecedented step of returning to the Foreign Office to study files relating to three British citizens who were tortured in Bangladesh and Egypt while he was foreign secretary.
After spending almost two hours examining the papers, he issued a statement in which he said the documents contained no evidence that UK ministers were asked to grant permission for any of the men to be detained, and said that it would be wrong to suggest that he had ever sanctioned torture. The statement does not address the possibility that intelligence extracted under torture was later received by the UK authorities.
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