Attorney General consider's Heston man's torture claim

Feb 25 2010 By Robert Cumber

THE ALLEGED torture of a former Heston tube worker is among five cases being considered by the Attorney General following fresh claims of British complicity, it emerged this week.

Zeeshan Siddiqui, of The Vale, Heston, has been missing since 2006, when he escaped from a mental health unit. The Government has since named him as an Al Qaeda suspect.

A spokeswoman for the Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, this week said she was responding to a letter from Tory MP David Davis calling for a judicial review of Mr Siddiqui's case and that of four other former prisoners.

She said the letter highlighted an earlier report by the campaign group Human Rights Watch, published in November last year.

Mr Siddiqui is one of five ex-detainees mentioned in report, four of whom have been accused of involvement in terrorism. It is considered unlikely Baroness Scotland's response will lead to further police enquiries.

Mr Siddiqui, a 29-year-old ex-Cranford Community College pupil, claims he was drugged, beaten and denied access to a toilet after being arrested in Pakistan in 2005.

He says British intelligence officers visited him while he was being held and that they knew he was being 'tortured'.

Mr Siddiqui was deported to the UK in January 2006 after being acquitted of possessing a forged Pakistani identity card. He fled that September after a control order was placed on him by the Government.

Baroness Scotland has already called detectives in over two cases, including that of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed, following claims British secret services officers were complicit in their torture.

MI5 director general Jonathan Evans has strongly denied accusations of a torture 'cover-up'.

In an article published earlier this month, he claimed the only reason it has tried to prevent the publication of 'sensitive' information has been to protect the UK's 'vital intelligence relationship' with the US.