Rules for Britain\u2019s intelligence services seem strict \u2013 but experts say they give too much room for manoeuvre<\/p>\n
After the 9\/11 attacks on the United States and the UK intelligence agencies\u2019 embroilment in scandals relating to the \u201cwar on terror\u201d, the government published a policy on torture and intelligence, then known as the \u201cconsolidated guidance\u201d. The aim was to show the standards to which the UK holds itself and its intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n
The current rules, \u201cthe principles\u201d<\/a>, which replaced the consolidated guidance, were drawn up after the 2018 apology<\/a> for Britain\u2019s role in the rendition of a Libyan dissident, Abdel Hakim Belhaj<\/a>, and his wife, as well as two damning reports published by the parliamentary intelligence and security committee (ISC) in the same year, which found that MI5 and MI6 were involved in hundreds of torture cases<\/a> and scores of rendition cases after 9\/11.<\/p>\n