UK Tribunal Clarifies When British Intelligence Agencies are “Complicit” in Torture in First Case Scrutinising its Complicity in CIA Abuses
In a ground-breaking ruling, senior UK judges have for the first time clarified what it means for UK intelligence services to be “complicit” in torture or other ill-treatment by foreign States during intelligence operations.
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), the UK’s tribunal overseeing complaints about intelligence agencies, has set out clear legal duties for MI5, MI6, GCHQ, and other agencies to prevent complicity in torture when cooperating with foreign intelligence services. The judgment follows an unprecedented trial in June 2025 examining allegations of British involvement in the torture of Mustafa al-Hawsawi, a “High-Value Detainee” tortured by US forces after his 2003 arrest. It marked the first time a UK court or judicial body has scrutinised alleged UK complicity in CIA abuses after 9/11.
Crucially, the IPT considered circumstances in which UK intelligence services share information with foreign intelligence services, such as putting questions to detainees or using information from their interrogations, and ruled that they are subject to the following legal obligations:
- They must assess whether a detainee faces a risk of torture or other ill-treatment before sharing information with a foreign intelligence service;
- They must make reasonable enquiries of the foreign State concerned and, if necessary, seek assurances that a detainee will not be ill-treated; and
- They cannot cooperate where they “know or reasonably ought to know” that a detainee is “at risk” of torture or other ill-treatment.
Chris Esdaile, Senior Legal Advisor at REDRESS, said:
“The IPT has, for the first time, set down some clear markers to help ensure that our intelligence services can never again be drawn into complicity in the torture and ill-treatment of detainees by foreign States.”
The trial comes over 22 years after Mr al-Hawsawi was seized by Pakistani agents and transferred into the custody of CIA in March 2003, leading to a long ordeal of secret detention, torture and ill-treatment.
Complaint to the IPT
In 2021, REDRESS filed a complaint before the IPT – on behalf of Mr al-Hawsawi. It alleged that British agencies – including MI5, MI6, GCHQ, and the Ministry of Defence’s intelligence section – were likely to have been complicit in Mr al-Hawsawi’s torture by supplying questions or information for his CIA interrogators, and receiving information obtained through torture, despite knowing of the CIA’s systematic abuse of “High-Value Detainees”.
The complaint to the IPT included requests for the following:
- Access to any documents or information held by UK intelligence agencies concerning Mr al-Hawsawi’s detention and ill-treatment.
- A declaration that UK intelligence agencies or their agents were complicit in his torture and ill-treatment, and acted unlawfully, by providing questions for his interrogation to US officials or receiving information obtained through it – whilst knowing or having known he was being tortured or ill-treated.
The IPT’s decision: The legal principles on complicity
While the IPT confirmed that UK intelligence services have the legal power to liaise with foreign intelligence services, it ruled that they cannot legally engage in intelligence-sharing “without having regard to the fundamental norms concerned, in particular the prohibition of torture.” The Tribunal contrasted the ‘passive receipt’ of information obtained through torture, which would be lawful according to the Tribunal, with a situation in which actions are taken to encourage the obtaining of information by torture, which would be unlawful.
The IPT’s decision: The investigation of the facts
Despite its groundbreaking clarification of the law, the IPT’s investigation into the facts led it to conclude that the intelligence services did not act unlawfully.
Unfortunately, the IPT’s investigation into the facts was undertaken behind closed doors and neither Mr al-Hawsawi or his legal representatives will ever see the outcome of that investigation. Neither has the IPT explained how the legal principles on complicity were applied to the facts they found.
Chris Esdaile, Senior Legal Advisor at REDRESS, said:
“We are disappointed that the secrecy surrounding this investigation means that, for all the Tribunal’s helpful work in clarifying the law, the outcome lacks the transparency required by international legal standards. Mr al-Hawsawi, as a survivor of the most extreme forms of torture, deserved a more open decision on the facts.”
To REDRESS’s knowledge, this is the first time the IPT has undertaken this kind of comprehensive investigation into the CIA’s black sites programme.
Background: the case of Mustafa al-Hawsawi
Mr al-Hawsawi was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and transferred to US custody, where he was secretly detained and tortured in secret CIA-run prisons (known as ‘black sites’). The US publicly confirmed in 2014 that he was subjected to several forms of ill-treatment while in US detention, including water dousing (similar to water boarding), walling, attention grasps, sleep deprivation, cramped confinement, psychological pressures and other forms of physical violence.
Such abuses – which amount to torture in international law – and the conditions of his confinement have caused him permanent harm, for which he has not received appropriate medical care, or any rehabilitation.
In 2024, in a case brought on his behalf by REDRESS, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in Mr al-Hawsawi’s favour, finding that Lithuania was complicit in his unlawful rendition, secret detention and torture by US authorities while he was secretly detained in a CIA ‘black site’ in Lithuania.
REDRESS is grateful for the assistance of barristers Edward Craven KC and Florence Iveson, both at Matrix Chambers, in connection with the presentation of this case before the IPT.
For more information, contact Eva Sanchis, Head of Communications, on [email protected] or +44 (0)7857 110076.
Photo of MI6 building, London by Alastair Rae at flickr.com
