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Intelligence and Security Committee

Yes, but that does not take away from the point that if an individual says that he was mistreated by the intelligence and security services, that is a matter not for our Committee but for the tribunal. The tribunal is ready and waiting, and anyone out there who thinks that they have a complaint can put it to the tribunal. The Committee looked at the detail of the allegations raised by Mr. Mohamed, but we did not reach any premature conclusions regarding the Security Service or, in particular, regarding witness B. We recognised that the Attorney-General was considering the allegations, and that she might refer the matter to the police. She subsequently did so. If terror suspects are to be considered innocent until proven guilty, we owe that same standard to officers in our intelligence agencies. We must therefore await the outcome of the police investigation before leaping on to the bandwagon of trial by media. Our letter did, however, severely criticise the agencies' record keeping, and recommended that certain types of case be referred to Ministers rather than delegated back to officials. We also raised a number of key policy questions that we believe the Government must address—not least the need to make clear to the public the difficulties that officers in our security services face as they try to balance the risk to detainees with the need to safeguard the security of the UK and its citizens. It is a great shame that the letter has got lost in our review, because I believe that what we said in it would have been of help to the House and others and would have put an end to a great deal of uninformed speculation. We could then have had a serious debate on this matter.