UK to probe claims of role in Libya torture

LONDON - Police are to investigate claims that UK secret services helped the rendition of Libyan Islamists to Muammar Gaddafi's Libya where they were tortured.But an inquiry has found no evidence UK spies were complicit in separate allegations of torture of terrorism suspects abroad.Members of the domestic intelligence agency MI5 and its foreign equivalent MI6 have for years faced accusations they had colluded in the ill treatment of detainees, often at the hands of US authorities.The issue was so serious UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said last November Britain's international standing had been damaged by the allegations.The claims prompted two inquiries by London's Metropolitan Police (MPS), one into the mistreatment of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed and another into the alleged abuse of an unnamed individual held by US authorities at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.In a joint statement, the MPS and Britain's Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) said the "painstaking" investigations into "serious and highly sensitive matters" had concluded there was insufficient evidence to bring any charges.