LONDON, May 6 (UPI) -- MI5 promised to free British terror detainees held in U.S. jails in exchange for their cooperation but then reneged, an intelligence source says.
An unnamed source said operatives of the British spy agency approached terrorism suspects held at U.S. prisons in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, offering them freedom from their American captors if they agreed to work undercover for M15, the British newspaper The Independent reported Wednesday.
But promises made by the agents were reportedly overruled at high levels of the British government, the source said.
"(The agents) fear they will be hung out to dry," the source said. "This is not the first time that field agents have been made to carry the can even when there is a paper trail all the way to the top authorizing the action and conduct of the agents."
"These allegations show the extent of MI5's involvement with those people who were illegally abducted and held in Guantanamo Bay," Edward Davey, the Liberal Democrats' spokesman on foreign affairs, told The Independent. "It's increasingly clear that Britain must have known much more about American practices at Guantanamo Bay, including water-boarding, than they are prepared to admit."
