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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: We’ve got David Davis here, the former Shadow Home Secretary.  Mr Davis, are you confident that Sir Malcolm’s committee – and a very good morning to you by the way – are you confident that his committee will get to the bottom of how involved Britain was?  

DAVID DAVIS: Well it may well do.  The issue, there are two issues here, one is as Malcolm himself has said, in the past the ISC has had a less than brilliant record on rendition, on surveillance, even on the 7/7 attack.  

DM: But as Sir Malcolm said, increased powers now.  

DAVID DAVIS: Yes of course and there’s no doubt that the best report the ISC has produced to date is the Lee Rigby report which was produced under his chairmanship and under the new rules.  Nevertheless, what we’ve got here is something which is of massive national importance.  What we want out of it is something which says to everybody, this will never happen again.  Indeed it becomes politically fatal for it to happen on your watch.  

DM: Well this will happen again.  We can’t say never happen again, we don’t know what has happened in terms of Britain’s involvement do we?

DAVID DAVIS: We know quite a lot, we know quite a lot.  

DM: Well what do we know so far?  

DAVID DAVIS: Well we know that there has been provision of … well what the courts said there was provision of questions to, in the Binyam Mohamed case, we know in the Rangieb Ahmed case that MI6 knew that he was being picked up by ISI and they knew they tortured and they did nothing to act there.  There are a whole series of bits and pieces all over the place and of course the Belhadj case, possibly the most serious case, which I think Sir Malcolm’s committee has been looking into.

DM: And the issue of role in extraordinary rendition at bases and all that much.  

DAVID DAVIS: All of which was denied time and time and time again by the government of the day and what’s more, when there was an attempt to put it in the public domain by the courts, David Miliband three times exercised the Public Interest Immunity Certificate to try to prevent that happening.  Eventually the courts found a way through that but it was very difficult so one must understand the sheer weight of pressure that comes from the establishment to try and stop this sort of stuff coming out so I think this needs to be a judicial inquiry.  I used to work for Malcolm Rifkind, I am a big fan of his, but the [inaudible] I think has to be bigger than that, I think it has to be completely independently established.  

DM: But Mr Davis, behind that then, do you think that particularly some of those politicians might refuse to speak to Sir Malcolm and will have to be compelled under law to do so?  

DAVID DAVIS: I am not going to get involved … both Malcolm and I know I am not going to get into commenting about here because they may face judicial issues. I don't think we should prosecute people on this issue, I can understand why somebody in 2002 did what they did even though it was wrong, in the aftermath of 9/11 but I do think it should be in the public domain.  I think it should not be subject to redaction, I think the person who makes the decision should be a senior judge and he should do it as it were outwith the system and at the moment, as Malcolm himself said, the simple truth is that the redactions have to be agreed between this committee and the Prime Ministers.  And everything gets redacted, even the Lee Rigby report got redacted, so it has to be outwith that, I has to be much more powerful and independent, even the Dianne Feinstein case.

DM: Okay but isn’t there a simpler way around this and couldn’t the current British government say okay, it concerns us, we’ll unredact what we can unredact, you can have a look at it now without Sir Malcolm having to …

DAVID DAVIS: Look what happened with the Gibson Report.  We had an incoming new government full of idealism, set up a report to look into this specific issue, they appointed someone who either behaved in the way or did something or had a reputation, I don't know which, which did not carry the credibility necessary with all the people complaining about this, all the NGOs, all the outsiders who were concerned about it, some of the MPs were concerned about it and as a result it collapsed, it didn’t work.  Malcolm’s committee had to pick it up and run with it and frankly you can’t have that happen again.

DM: And do you think, David Davis, that it could go further than this, rather than what we seem to be hinting at now, that Britain was in some way – okay we know about extraordinary renditions and perhaps members of the security infrastructure being in the back of a room whilst some unsavoury things were going on, do you think it could have gone further than that, that Britain could have been directly involved?  Again you talk about the number of cases, there are hundreds of Iraqis saying okay, not the security services but saying that the military forces, that they were tortured they allege.

DAVID DAVIS: Well there is the Baha Moussa case already, a man who died under … and then these cases going before the international criminal court so it’s possible but I think unlikely.  I think if that happened I suspect that was not authorised and it was what happened as it were at the face under the pressures of warfare. I don't think it’s likely, it’s possible and you’re quite right, we need to make sure none of it happened or if it did, it is exposed and put the problems to…

DM: But just on that broad point, David Davis, do you think torture can ever be justified?  You say you can understand it but can it ever be justified given the extreme threat that was being faced and is being faced?

DAVID DAVIS: No, never as an act, as an arm of state policy, never, ever.  Also I think we should understand that it doesn’t work and actually can work in complete reversal to what you expect.  For example, much of the evidence for the involvement in the second Iraq War was obtained by torture, it was almost certainly false. As a result of that war 100,000 Iraqis are now dead today so it can do real harm.

DM: Okay and the last question about Diego Garcia, I must ask that, British territory leased to the Americans, that lease is coming up and it has played some role in the movement of people around the world for interrogation or enhanced interrogation, should we renew that lease?

DAVID DAVIS: I think we should first consider the terms in some detail and I actually wouldn’t do it before we had the outcome of whichever report we end up with.  Once we know what happened then we can renew on proper terms.

DM: Okay, well gentlemen thank you both very much indeed, David Davis, very good to see you and thank you to you Sir Malcolm Rifkind.