 The United States has said that British police can board and search rendition flights carrying terrorist suspects if the authorities can produce evidence of a crime and officers turn up with a search warrant. The US has been criticised for not allowing routine inspections of aircraft at UK airports amid allegations it is flying suspects to be tortured.
| We could certainly demand to search all British Airways flights on some pretext. |
But yesterday Cecile Shea, the US consul in Scotland, told The Scotsman that if UK authorities had evidence that a crime had been committed then under British law police could seek a search warrant and if succesful board the aircraft. "If the crown prosecutor does believe a crime is being committed they should file a warrant and search the plane," she said. "If the crown prosecutor was to obtain a search warrant we would honour it."
However she again ruled out allowing routine searches of US aircraft, as requested by opponents of the US policy of extraordinary rendition. "These people are asking to search every plane and the answer to that is no," she said.
| The CIA should be flying baby duck chow on every plane for the next few months. |
Colin Boyd, the Lord Advocate, has previously stated that he has no evidence to justify the issuing of a search warrant to inspect US flights and yesterday the Crown Office said police would not be able to board flights without a warrant. A Crown Office spokeswoman said that aircraft were treated as private property. She said police could board a plane if they believed there was "evidence that there is an ongoing dangerous situation", but said that would not cover the movement of terrorist suspects. "In the case that someone was being taken somewhere, that would not be enough to board immediately because the torture was not happening then and there. The immediate risk to life is not there," she said.
The SNP yesterday urged the US to voluntarily allow British investigators to board flights suspected of being involved in rendition without warrants. Angus Robertson, the party's foreign affairs spokesman, said: "If we are going to work together and maintain the highest human rights standards we need to show that none of these activities are going on." Human rights campaigners have argued that the UK has a duty under international law to investigate allegations that its airports are being used by aircraft transporting prisoners to be tortured.
| But the Crown just said there was insufficient evidence to get a warrant, which means the allegations are just piffle. |
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