Ex-MI5 chief says US 'concealed suspect mistreatment'

Baroness Mannigham-Buller spoke at a lecture in the House of Lords

The former head of MI5 has claimed US intelligence agencies "concealed" their mistreatment of terror suspects.

Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller said she only discovered alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded after retiring in 2007.

In a lecture at the House of Lords, she said the US had been "very keen to conceal from us what was happening".

Her comments follow controversy over UK agents' alleged collusion with US counterparts using torture techniques.

Last month it emerged that Binyam Mohamed, a British resident formerly held at Guantanamo Bay, had been subjected to "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment.

"The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing Lady Manningham-Buller

Ministers and current MI5 head Jonathan Evans have insisted that there was no collusion by UK security officers.

However, questions remain about exactly when they learnt that the US apparently changed its rules on torture after the 9/11 attacks.

Lady Manningham-Buller, who headed MI5 between 2002 and 2007, said: "The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing."

In a lecture at an event organised by the Mile End Group, she said she had wondered, in 2002 and 2003, how the US had been able to supply the UK with intelligence from Mohamed and was told that he was "very proud of his achievements when questioned about it".

"It wasn't actually until after I retired that I read that, in fact, he had been waterboarded 160 times," she said.

Lady Manningham-Buller said the government had lodged "protests" with the US about its treatment of detainees, but refused to go into further detail.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman was not prepared to comment on the former MI5 chief's comments.

She said the Foreign Office could not, at this stage, find any details of protests lodged by the British government with the US over the treatment of detainees.