The BBC once again doing their best to protect their Labour friends (part 1)

In all of the copious coverage of the CIA 'torture' claims of recent days I haven't heard or seen mention of possible British participation in or even just knowledge of these activities.

By way of contrast The Telegraph report:

'The US Torture report provides reams of uncomfortable details about the CIA’s use of torture that was authorised by the administration of George W Bush, but for Britons it leaves one key question unanswered.

What did Tony Blair, then Prime Minister, and Jack Straw, then Foreign Secretary, know of a CIA torture programme that was sanctioned at the very highest levels of the US government? And to what extent were they complicit in giving UK assistance to US operations?

More than a decade after 9/11 the British government has yet to conduct a full inquiry into the UK role in the US torture and rendition programme.

The Gibson Inquiry, set up by the coalition government in 2010 to investigate the issue, was shelved in January 2012 when compelling new evidence emerged that MI6 had been involved in the rendition of two suspected terrorists to Libya in 2004.

An ongoing Scotland Yard investigation into the renditions of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi and a civil claim for compensation in which Jack Straw was named as a respondent rendered the

Gibson Inquiry untenable since it risked prejudicing those proceedings.
However intelligence sources who spoke to The Telegraph earlier this year alleged that both Mr Blair and Mr Straw knew in detail about the CIA’s secret programme after the September 11 attacks and were kept informed “every step of the way”.' 

Interesting, but clearly not to the BBC.

But that's The Telegraph, ostensibly a Conservative supporting newspaper. Why should the BBC follow their lead?

How about The BBC's favourite newspaper, The Guardian? In 2012 that newspaper reported that:

'Jack Straw, the former foreign secretary, and Sir Mark Allen, a former senior MI6 officer, have been cited as key defendants in court documents that describe in detail abuse meted out to Libyan dissidents and their families after being abducted and handed to Muammar Gaddafi's secret police with the help of British intelligence.

The documents accuse Straw of misleading MPs about Britain's role in the rendition of two leading dissidents – Abdel Hakim Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi – and say MI6 must have known they risked being tortured. They say British intelligence officers provided Libyan interrogators with questions to ask their captives and themselves flew to Tripoli to interview the detainees in jail.'

Now The Guardian is a Labour (or other left-of-centre party) supporting paper, is the BBC more loyal to Labour than the BBC?