British intelligence officers knew about – and on occasions witnessed – the mistreatment of suspected terrorists after 9/11, but did too little to stop or prevent it, a report has found.
A long overdue report on detainee mistreatment and rendition, from parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), concludes those at the top of MI6, MI5 and Defence Intelligence knew about "the pattern of mistreatment by the US" and "tolerated" it.
According to the report, between the 2001 terror attacks in the US and 2010, there were:
:: 13 incidents where UK personnel witnessed detainee mistreatment first hand.
:: 25 incidents when detainees told UK personnel they'd been mistreated.
:: 128 occasions when a foreign intelligence agency told the UK about mistreatment but nothing was done.
:: 232 occasions when UK intelligence officers supplied questions for interviews despite knowing or suspecting mistreatment.
:: 198 times when UK intelligence agencies received information from a third party, gathered through torture.
However, the report concluded there is not any evidence to indicate that "UK agency officers or defence intelligence personnel directly carried out physical mistreatment of detainees".
From 2002, UK intelligence officers from MI6, MI5 and the Ministry of Defence (MOD), participated in an estimated 2-3,000 interviews of detainees, held by the US at locations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
On rendition, the practice of secretly flying a detainee to another country without trial, the report said there is no "smoking gun" to indicate that the agencies "deliberately overlooked reports of mistreatment and rendition by the US as a matter of institutional policy".
But, "there was no understanding in HMG [Her Majesty's Government] of rendition and no clear policy – or even recognition of the need for one", it added.
The report stated: "We have found three individual cases where SIS [Secret Intelligence Service or MI6] or MI5 made, or offered to make, a financial contribution to others to conduct a rendition operation.
"Given the countries concerned, these can be described as 'extraordinary renditions' due to the real risk of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatments.
"There is no evidence that any US rendition flight transited the UK with a detainee onboard.
"Two detainees are now know to have transferred through Diego Garcia: we have seen nothing to indicate that detainees have ever been held on Diego Garcia [a military facility in the Indian Ocean], although the records are woefully inadequate."
The committee took 50 hours of oral evidence over the past three years, reviewed 4,000 documents and devoted 30,000 staff hours to the inquiry.
It took evidence from former detainees and three former intelligence officers, but criticised the government for denying them access to some witnesses.
The chairman of the ISC, former attorney general and Tory MP Dominic Grieve, said it was easy to criticise with hindsight.
"We wish to be absolutely clear that we do not seek to blame individual officers acting under immense pressure," he said.
"Our findings must be viewed in the context in which events took place.
"The pace of work after 9/11, both in Afghanistan and London, was frenetic: we do not underestimate the pressure that the agencies experienced whilst dealing with the imperative to protect the UK and prevent another attack on the scale of 9/11."
In a second report, also released on Thursday, that examines the current situation, the ISC concludes that the agencies have implemented changes to prevent it happening again.
"Whilst there is room for improvement, very few countries have attempted to set out their approach to these matters, and let themselves be held accountable in this manner," it said.
"It is to the agencies' and the MOD's credit that they have embedded these procedures."
Responding to the ISC reports, Corey Stoughton, advocacy director at civil liberties campaign group Liberty, said: "As the committee itself bemoans, the government crippled this inquiry from the start, constraining its scope, withholding critical information, and creating obstacles to a full and complete reckoning on the UK's complicity in torture.
"But even with such limited access to the people and materials they needed to get to the truth, the committee has delivered two stinging reports into what it terms 'inexcusable' conduct.
"Their pages make for distressing reading, but we still haven't got to the bottom of the UK's involvement in the unforgivable mistreatment of people around the world.
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"Ministers must finally instigate the promised independent judge-led inquiry to delve deeper into our country's involvement in torture and rendition."
Prior to the publication of the ISC reports, Mr Grieve dismissed claims there were any significant last-minute changes at the request of US officials.
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