The Guardian reports on criticism of the government’s draft security bill, which Reprieve has said would let spies and ministers enable killings and torture.
Maya Foa, joint executive director of Reprieve, said it was an unthinkable power to grant ministers and officials that would “risk putting them above the ordinary criminal law” and could even embolden leaders to “commit serious crimes thinking they can do so with effective impunity”.
Foa said that enacting clause 23 of the national security bill would “destroy the UK’s moral legitimacy to condemn similar atrocities by autocratic states” after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia.