Miliband urged to say more about flights to Diego Garcia

Earlier this year Foreign Secretary David Miliband apologised to MPs and said that he had been misinformed when he said that extraordinary rendition flights had not landed on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, a British territory.  He admitted that two flights landed on the island in 2002 and refuelled.  Now he is being asked to reveal more details. 

The chair of the all-party group of MPs on the subject of extraordinary renditions has complained to the information commissioner about the lack of information coming from the government.  Who were the prisoners who were flown to Diego Garcia and what happened to them?

Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chairs the group, explained the reason for the request: "It is important to be confident that UK officials do not find themselves complicit in kidnap and torture".

See the Wikipedia entry on Extraordinary Rendition by the United States and Amnesty's web page on Rendition and Secret Detention.

Diego Garcia is perhaps not a famous island but you may have heard about the eviction of islanders to make way for a United States military base.  The government of the UK went along with it.  The cover story was that there were no permanent residents on the island.  John Pilger has written about it in a chapter called "Stealing a Nation" in the book Freedom Next Time.