Friday, January 7, 2011

British lawyer calls for international inquiry into RAB

A high-profile British lawyer has called for a UK-led international inquiry into the activities of Bangladeshi elite force RAB. The objective of the inquiry will be to uncover the truth behind RAB’s highly dubious human rights record.
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If it is found that RAB consistently violated these rights in carrying out their operations, the UK government can be dissuaded from providing the training and support facilities that it has been to RAB over the last three years, as revealed in US embassy cables relating to Bangladesh released by whistleblower site WikiLeaks.
Talking to UNB over phone from his office in Birmingham, Phil Shiner, who has gained a reputation as arguably the most combative human rights lawyer in Britain, sounded in no doubt about RAB being a reckless, Latin American-style “death squad”, as described in a damaging report published by left-leaning British newspaper the Guardian, on December 23.
“There must be a full inquiry initiated by the UK into the activities of the RAB,” said Shiner, before adding, “all states owe duties to each other to cooperate and uncover RAB’s activities, and to bring all unlawful activities, including of executions, to an immediate end.”
The law firm Shiner founded, Public Interest Lawyers, wrote a letter to the UK government’s Home, and Foreign offices following publication of the Guardian report, seeking a judicial review of the legality of UK support for RAB.
Asked what sort of evidence this legal challenge would rely upon to make its case, Shiner said “it’s all there, in the cables.”
When it was pointed out that any evidence contained in the cables may not be admissible in court, the man who came to fame by representing Iraqi prisoners against the British government added that past reports from groups like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch also amounted to evidence, apart from answers to specific questions related to the issue provided in Britain’s parliament.

But the carefully worded cables, upon closer examination, really fail to reveal much that should worry the UK government, or even RAB. There is no condemnation of RAB’s record; only a recognition at best, of the doubts surrounding its record of adhering to human rights laws. And nothing to suggest the training provided by members of the British police force could have “rendered torture more effective.”
The most controversial feature of its modus operandi is the extrajudicial deaths of criminals or whoever it is chasing at the time, and then the categorization of these deaths under the misleading term “crossfire”. Shiner is optimistic that this line of inquiry can eventually lead to compensation for the families of some of the victims, paid for by British taxpayers.

-BNN

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