The Case of Binyam Mohamed
By JOANNE MARINER | Counterpunch, August 29, 2008
Britain’s High Court will hold a hearing to assess whether the UK government should be ordered to hand over secret documents to lawyers for a Guantanamo detainee. The detainee in question, Binyam Mohamed, faces possible charges of conspiracy and material support for terrorism before a military commission at Guantanamo.
Mohamed, an Ethiopian national and former UK resident, was arrested in Pakistan in April 2002. Transferred to US custody, he was reportedly rendered by the CIA to Morocco, detained there secretly for over a year, and then moved for several months to a secret CIA detention site in Afghanistan. He then spent a few months in military detention at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, and was ultimately brought to Guantanamo Bay in September 2004.
Mohamed claims that he was brutally tortured during his time in secret detention, and that the evidence that will likely be used to prosecute him is a result of that torture. He also claims that the UK government has information that supports his claims of abuse.
Last week, in an important judgment, the UK High Court ruled in Mohamed’s favor. It found that the British government was under a legal obligation to disclose to Mohamed’s counsel the information it possesses relating to Mohamed’s whereabouts, treatment, and interrogation between April 2002 and May 2004. The court emphasized that this information is “not merely necessary but essential” to Mohamed’s defense against military commission charges.
While the court stopped short of ordering the foreign secretary to hand over the information—allowing additional time for the national security implications of disclosure to be considered—it will reach the mandatory disclosure question at its hearing this week.
From Britain to Pakistan to the Prison of Darkness
Binyam Mohamed came to Britain in 1994, when he was a student, after having spend a short period in the United States. He converted to Islam while in the UK, and in mid-2001 he left the UK for Pakistan and Afghanistan. He claims that he traveled to the region because he wanted to kick a drug habit.
The military commission charges that have been sworn against Mohamed allege that he attended an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, and later received training in building remote-controlled explosive detention devices in Pakistan. While living at an Al Qaeda safe house in Lahore, Pakistan, the charges say, Mohamed allegedly agreed to be sent to the United States to conduct terror operations.
Mohamed was arrested at the Karachi airport on April 10, 2002, as he attempted to leave Pakistan to fly to London. Although he was initially detained in Karachi, he claims that he was interrogated there by US agents. The UK High Court has also confirmed that a British agent visited Mohamed in Pakistani custody on May 17, 2002.
Mohamed claims that he was rendered by the CIA to Morocco in July 2002. There, he claims, he was beaten, repeatedly cut on his genitals, and threatened with rape, electrocution and death. Interrogators reportedly asked him detailed questions about his seven years in London, based on information that his lawyers believe came from British sources.
In late January 2004, Mohamed says, he was sent to Afghanistan, where he was held in a secret CIA prison—called the “Prison of Darkness”—until May 2004. At that point, he was transferred to military detention, first at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, then at Guantanamo, where he remains.
According to the UK High Court, the military commissions case against Mohamed is based on confessions Mohamed made while in military custody—after May 2004—not on anything he said while being interrogated by the CIA. Mohamed claims, however, that it was the abuse in CIA custody that induced him to confess while in military custody, and so proof of those CIA abuses are crucial to his defense.
Refusal to Disclose
As part of a continuing effort to cover up the CIA’s misdeeds, US officials have refused to provide Mohamed or his lawyers any information whatsoever about his treatment or whereabouts from the time of arrest in April 2002 until he was transferred to Bagram in May 2004. To date, the UK government has similarly refused to provide Mohamed’s lawyers any such information, although it has acknowledged that some documents in its possession might be exculpatory.
In last week’s ruling, the High Court noted that the UK foreign secretary had acknowledged that Mr. Mohamed had established an arguable case that he had been subject to illegal rendition and torture. The court also found that the British security forces had facilitated Mohamed’s interrogations by supplying information and questions to US officials, even while they knew that Mohamed was being held incommunicado in a non-military detention facility overseas.
The court found, in short, that the relationship of the UK government to the US authorities with regard to Mohamed “was far beyond that of a bystander or witness to the alleged wrongdoing.” Because the UK was in some way a participant, not simply an observer, the court held that the UK is legally obligated to provide Mohamed with information relating to his abuse.
Not only did the court deem this information to be “essential” to Mohamed’s ability to adequately defend himself, it emphasized the need for the government to provide the necessary information as soon as is practically possible. The reason for the hurried timing lies in the military commissions’ timetable. At present, military commission charges against Mohamed have been prepared, but the commission’s convening authority has not yet signed off on them. In order to potentially affect the charging decision, Mohamed has a important interest in getting exculpatory information to the convening authority before that decision is made.
The Prospect of Mandatory Disclosure
The UK court decried the fact that the US authorities have failed to provide this potentially exculpatory information to Mohamed’s counsel, particularly since both his counsel are security-cleared. But it recognized, as well, that the United States’ failure is no excuse for Britain’s inaction.
Unless the UK foreign secretary voluntarily provides the relevant documents to Mohamed’s counsel, the High Court will consider ordering disclosure. Such an order, which the court seems presently inclined to grant, would open an important crack in the wall of secrecy that surrounds the CIA’s rendition, detention, and interrogation abuses.
Joanne Mariner is a human rights attorney.
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Peace and Justice Post 
No one will write to the General
August 30, 2008Khushwant Singh | Hindustan Times, August 29, 2008
May God be your protector Mr Musharraf. Your almost nine-year autocratic rule has come to an inglorious end. It was wise of you to step down before they impeached you. Impeachment would have been neither in your nor your country’s interest.
At the end of your political career, you have more well-wishers in India than in your own country.
It was a minor miracle as you started off with an attempt to grab Kargil from us by force that almost brought our countries to the brink of a war. Several hundred lives, Pakistani and Indian, were lost in your misadventure. You were quick to realise that taking on India was no child’s play and being on good terms with us would be more profitable.
And so it was. Road, rail and air travel between us showed noticeable increase. So did trade, commerce and goodwill.
Relations between our countries had never been friendlier than in your latter years in power. We were not aware of the resentment building up against you in your own country because we did not have to suffer your authoritative rule. You should have known the adage: power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Granted you did not make money or promote your relations to privileged positions as most politicians do in our countries.
But you did rob your people off their rights and freedoms. You sacked the Chief Justice and 60 other judges. You ordered their arbitrary arrests. And you suspended the Constitution. You should have known you would have to pay a heavy price for doing so.
Your people turned against you. You tried to win support of your foreign allies. At the prodding of the Chinese, you ordered the storming of the Lal Masjid that had become the hot-bed of Taliban bigotry and attacked Chinese run beauty and massage parlours in Islamabad. Lal Masjid was a bloody affair in which many men and women were killed. At the prodding of the Americans you tried to recover areas in the north-west extending from Swat to Baluchistan. Many more lives including Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti’s were lost. That eroded the little support you had.
In the elections you reluctantly held, your party got a drubbing. Now we have Messrs Zardari, Sharif and Gilani — all three tainted with charges of corruption — at the helm of affairs of Pakistan. In actual fact, the one thing that holds the country together is the army. We are back to square one, but without your calling the shots. What are friends of Pakistan in India to make of this aborted attempt to become a democracy ?
Having said all that, we still invoke the mercy of Allah to protect you from harm. Many attempts were made on your life when you were in power. No doubt those very people will be dying to settle scores with you. Hence the prayer, Allah Hafiz!
Idle thoughts
What preoccupies the minds of men past their middle age after they have done their day’s work and have nothing to do? Based on introspection, I have come to the conclusion that they think of three things whose proportions vary with age but are concerned with basic needs of survival, procreation, reflections of their past years and uncertainty of the future.
If they are still working, they first think of how their work is progressing and what remains to be accomplished. They are concerned with their bread and butter, the instinct of survival. Then they think of sexual affairs they had or wanted to have. That is basically the instinct to procreate. And finally, they go over their past: friends they had, misunderstandings or deaths that ended their relationships and what the future holds for them. Mohammed Rafi Sauda (1713-1781), poet laureate of the Mughal Court, thought along the same lines:
Fikr-e-maash, ishq-e-butaan, yaad-e-raftgaan
Is zindagi mein ab koi kya kya karey
(Concern for livelihood, love for women, memories of the past
What else is there to left to man in his life?)
Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797-1869) had much the same thing to say, except that he was obsessed with impending death.
He craved for fursat (a break from the all-consuming business of making a living to indulge his mind on other things):
Jee dhoondta hai phir vahi fursat ke raat din
Baithey rahen tassavur-e-jaanaam kiye hue
In later life, a man spends less time thinking of his livelihood. Recollections of affairs with women recede into the background as do memories of departed friends. He begins to worry more of his unknown future.
Musharraf’s last message
Mujhe aur kuch nahi chahiye; mujhe mere haal pe rehne do
I don’t need anything except to be left to my fate.
There is a deep conspiracy to kick me out at any rate.
All along I worked honestly but a man at times makes a mistake;
Pardon me and don’t try to exaggerate.
For me Pakistan is everything: I leave it in the hands of the gods,
God: bless it and guard it against all odds.
After consulting legal luminaries, friends and foes
In the interest of Pakistan I resign;
It is only to safeguard the interests of
Pakistan and not mine.
(Courtesy: Lachhmandass, Janakpuri, Delhi)
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