vallierojas: Omar Awadh and the outsourcing of torture

Allegations of mistreatment of a Kenyan businessman suggest the FBI and MI5 have opened a 'new Guant�namo' in Kampala

The UK government has promised an inquiry into past incidents of torture. But its complicity in abusive practices appears to continue, and as the Guardian reports, a recent case suggests that its worst practices have simply been outsourced to Africa.

Omar Awadh is a 38-year-old Kenyan businessman who was forcibly and secretly deported, or rendered, from Nairobi to Kampala, and charged with offences relating to the July 2010 Kampala bombings, where he faces the death penalty if convicted. While in Ugandan detention, Omar Awadh's lawyer says Awadh has been tortured in the presence members of the FBI, and interrogated by members of the UK's MI5 intelligence service, on matters that have nothing to do with the crimes he is accused of.

Omar Awadh's case raises serious concerns that the FBI is running ? with British complicity ? what is essentially a sort of decentralised, outsourced Guant�namo Bay in Kampala, under the cloak of legitimate criminal process.

In July 2010, two simultaneous suicide bombs ripped through busy locations in Kampala, killing over 70 people who had gathered to watch the World Cup final. The bombing was swiftly attributed to the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab, and in the wake of the bombings, condolences poured in to President Yoweri Museveni. With the help of the UK's Metropolitan police, the FBI and Uganda's Kenyan counterparts, the investigation to find the bombers began.

East Africa's counter-terror investigations have, in the past, descended swiftly into witch-hunts. The lengthy investigations into the November 2002 attacks in Mombasa, Kenya were documented by Amnesty International (pdf), and involved numerous cases of incommunicado detention, detention without trial, torture and cruel inhuman and degrading treatment, with routine involvement of foreign agents. Ultimately, the investigations resulted in nothing but a botched prosecution ? the evidence so tainted by torture that the Kenyan courts themselves balked.

The Kampala investigations have so far been true to form. In the early weeks of July 2010, three Kenyan nationals were illegally rendered from Nairobi to Uganda, ostensibly in connection with the Kampala bombings. To their credit, the Kenyan courts were swift to condemn the renditions, but not before a further ten individuals, including Omar Awadh, were rendered from Kenya to Uganda.

On 17 September 2010, at about 12.30pm, Omar Awadh was apprehended in front of numerous witnesses, in Badru House shopping arcade on Moi Street, Nairobi, by members of the notorious Kenyan anti-terror police unit (ATPU). Omar Awadh was driven, hooded and cuffed, to the Malaba Border, and handed to Ugandan security agents, who took him to the headquarters of the Ugandan Rapid Response Unit (RRU) at Kireka, Kampala ? described by Human Rights Watch (HRW) as "like a 'black site' where they can do anything they like".

Since Omar Awadh was brought to Uganda, he has been singled out for harsh treatment and intensive interrogations by foreign agents, and routinely physically abused and subjected to threats. On one occasion, Awadh was kicked, slapped and had his legs stepped on by Ugandan officers, in the presence of individuals who had previously identified themselves as being from the FBI. Awadh has reported being beaten because he refused to give US agents a sample of his DNA; on another occasion, a gun was pointed at him during an interrogation.

Omar Awadh says that he has been subjected to psychological abuse and threats by his US interrogators, including being told that he would be rendered to another country, and being "disappeared".

On 30 September 2010, Omar Awadh was among 17 co-defendants, including Kenyan human rights defender Al-Amin Kimathi, whose cases were referred for trial at the high court in Kampala. All have been charged with murder, attempted murder and terrorism offences in relation to the July 2010 Kampala bombings. A further 17 were released after charges were dropped, although three were later rearrested for separate offences. The allegations against Omar Awadh are that he participated in meetings in Nairobi with several co-accused, and that he was arrested by Ugandan police with incriminating items in his possession.

However, after six months of detention and interrogations, Awadh has still not been given any further details of any of the evidence against him. Indeed, Awadh's interrogators appear to have focused on topics that are totally unrelated to the offences with which he has been charged. He has reported to his lawyer that his interrogators have said that they do not believe he was involved in the Kampala bombings, but they want to interrogate him about other matters. This suggests that the Ugandan criminal process is being used as a veil behind which Omar Awadh is being held "beyond the rule of law" for illegal interrogations by foreign agents.

Omar Awadh has described, by letter to his wife, that he was interrogated at least once by a team comprising both US and UK officers. Because of the difficulties in communicating with Awadh, it is by no means certain that this is the only occasion on which he has been interrogated by British personnel. He has also reported that from the beginning, his US interrogators have interrogated him intensively about British individuals they believe have links to Somalia, raising the possibility that UK interrogators may have been involved in his interrogations behind the scenes, even when not present in the interrogation chamber.

The new consolidated guidance for British intelligence operatives operating overseas makes it clear that in Awadh's case, a UK minister should have been consulted to authorise any involvement in interrogations. This therefore raises the spectre of ministerial authorisation for interrogations that involve complicity in torture.

The facts of this case suggest a worrying new trend in US-UK overseas detention policy, and raise urgent questions about the legality of the consolidated guidance for UK security and intelligence personnel operating overseas. Last week, the UK foreign office added to the confusing mix by releasing its own, apparently separate, guidance to staff, which presents a completely different protocol than the current guidance for security and intelligence officers interviewing detainees overseas.

Whether the foreign office's latest effort is a good faith gesture towards manifesting its professed policy of eradicating torture, or merely another missive not worth the paper it is written on, remains to be seen. However, for the prisoners in Kampala, UK government condemnations of torture are wearing thin. One wonders what exactly it will take to extract an honourable commitment from the UK government to abide by the laws against torture when involved in the interrogation of detainees abroad.