LONDON — The United States has told Britain it has found no further “extraordinary rendition” flights that passed through British territory following checks of hundreds of flights, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Thursday.
Human-rights campaigners rejected the new assurances and accused the U.S. and Britain of a transatlantic coverup over rendition — the policy of transferring foreign terrorism suspects to third countries without court approval.
Miliband said he had asked U.S. officials to examine a list of 391 flights highlighted by human-rights groups and lawmakers, after the U.S. acknowledged in February that it had been wrong in its previous assurances.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said then that two suspects had been on flights to Guantanamo Bay and Morocco in 2002 that stopped to refuel on Diego Garcia, a British island in the Indian Ocean that hosts a U.S. military base. She acknowledged Britain had previously been told that no such flights had passed through U.K. territory.
Miliband told lawmakers that his list of 391 other flights had now been checked over by U.S. officials and turned up no new cases.
