Government poised to announce terms of UK complicity in torture inquiry

Whitehall sources have this week claimed that the government could be poised to announce the terms of an inquiry into allegations that British security services were complicit in the torture of terror suspects.

This comes in a week when the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, delivered the first in a series of speeches outlining British foreign policy, stating "our foreign policy should always have consistent support for human rights and poverty reduction at its irreducible core and we should always strive to act with moral authority, recognising that once that is damaged it is hard to restore."

The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (now Freedom from Torture), which has long called for a thorough, independent and transparent inquiry into complicity in torture in the "war on terror', considers this to be an instrumental step in repairing the UK's damaged reputation and seeking justice.

Announcing in May of this year that the new coalition government would initiate an inquiry, the Foreign Secretary confirmed that the process would be "judge-led", a move welcomed at the time by the MF.

The MF considers that the terms "