Posts Tagged ‘Binyam Mohamed’

Newer Entries »

Top US lawyer warns of deaths at Guantánamo

February 8, 2009
Binyam Mohamed, a UK resident held in Guantánamo Bay.

Binyam Mohamed, a UK resident held in Guantánamo Bay. Photograph: PA

Lieutenant-Colonel Yvonne Bradley, an American military lawyer, will step through the grand entrance of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London tomorrow and demand the release of her client – a British resident who claims he was repeatedly tortured at the behest of US intelligence officials – from Guantánamo Bay. Bradley will also request the disclosure of 42 secret documents that allegedly chronicle not only how Binyam Mohamed was tortured, but may also corroborate claims that Britain was complicit in his treatment.

But first, Bradley, a US military attorney for 20 years, will reveal that Mohamed, 31, is dying in his Guantánamo cell and that conditions inside the Cuban prison camp have deteriorated badly since Barack Obama took office. Fifty of its 260 detainees are on hunger strike and, say witnesses, are being strapped to chairs and force-fed, with those who resist being beaten. At least 20 are described as being so unhealthy they are on a “critical list”, according to Bradley.

Mohamed, who is suffering dramatic weight loss after a month-long hunger strike, has told Bradley, 45, that he is “very scared” of being attacked by guards, after witnessing a savage beating for a detainee who refused to be strapped down and have a feeding tube forced into his mouth. It is the first account Bradley has personally received of a detainee being physically assaulted in Guantánamo.

Bradley recently met Mohamed in Camp Delta’s sparse visiting room and was shaken by his account of the state of affairs inside the notorious prison.

She said: “At least 50 people are on hunger strike, with 20 on the critical list, according to Binyam. The JTF [the Joint Task Force running Guantánamo] are not commenting because they do not want the public to know what is going on.

“Binyam has witnessed people being forcibly extracted from their cell. Swat teams in police gear come in and take the person out; if they resist, they are force-fed and then beaten. Binyam has seen this and has not witnessed this before. Guantánamo Bay is in the grip of a mass hunger strike and the numbers are growing; things are worsening.

“It is so bad that there are not enough chairs to strap them down and force-feed them for a two- or three-hour period to digest food through a feeding tube. Because there are not enough chairs the guards are having to force-feed them in shifts. After Binyam saw a nearby inmate being beaten it scared him and he decided he was not going to resist. He thought, ‘I don’t want to be beat, injured or killed.’ Given his health situation, one good blow could be fatal,” said Bradley.

“Binyam is continuing to lose weight and he is going to get worse. He has been told he is about to be released, but psychologically and physically he is declining.”

It is conceivable that Mohamed himself may shortly return to London, heralding yet another political embarrassment for Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who already faces a tumultuous week over claims that he was keen to suppress evidence of torture.

On Tuesday, the unprecedented dispute between Miliband and the judiciary is set to reignite when High Court judges Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones decide whether to reopen the case which Mohamed believes substantiates his torture claims.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a little-publicised court case into the treatment of Mohamed will open. American civil liberties lawyers are hoping to shine a light on the defence firm that allegedly carried out the practice of “rendition” on behalf of the CIA. Jeppesen Dataplan, a Boeing subsidiary, helped to arrange rendition flights for several terror suspects, including Mohamed, to nations where they claim they were tortured.

The case was originally dismissed after the Bush administration asserted “state secrets privilege”, indicating that it would endanger national security – the same argument used by Miliband. However, Obama has repeatedly stressed his willingness to be less secretive than his predecessor and a similar decision would lead to claims that the current administration is bent on suppressing evidence of torture.

Closer to home, the Observer has found evidence suggesting a broader unwillingness by Britain to confront the US over its war on terror programme. The Attorney General says it is “actively considering” possible criminal wrongdoings against MI5 and the CIA, but sources claim the government’s senior lawyer has failed, after almost four months of looking into the issue, to request material from the US that may substantiate allegations of MI5 complicity in Mohamed’s torture.

Suspicion is also growing that some sections of the US intelligence community would prefer Binyam did die inside Guantánamo. Silenced forever, only the sparse language of his diary would be left to recount his torture claims and interviewees with an MI5 officer, known only as Witness B. Such a scenario would also deny Mohamed the chance to personally sue the US, and possibly British authorities, over his treatment.

But if Mohamed survives to come back to London, his experiences of the past six years promise a harrowing journey through the dark underbelly of the war on terror. For Miliband, the questions concerning Britain’s role may have only just begun.

Tags:, , , , , , ,
Posted in Commentary, Human rights, Uncategorized, US policy | Leave a Comment »

Britain: Foreign Office colludes with US to cover-up torture of Binyam Mohamed

February 8, 2009
By Robert Stevens | WSWS, 7 February 2009

A High Court ruling by two British judges regarding the torture of a Guantánamo detainee has unleashed a major political crisis.

The judges have stated that they have been pressured by the United States into concealing evidence that should be made available in any country governed by the rule of law. This took the form of threats to withdraw security cooperation, instigated under the Bush administration and continued under Barak Obama’s presidency.

Binyam Mohamed, 30, is currently in Guantánamo Bay but is reportedly being prepared for a return to the UK. He states that he was tortured by US agents in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan between 2002 and 2004, and that Britain’s security agencies were complicit.

The High Court judgment on February 4 refused to order the disclosure of the CIA dossier said to contain evidence of his abuse. The document is a report by the US government to the British security services. The ruling followed a submission by the UK Foreign Office.

While calling for the document to be made public, the judges stated that it was not presently in the public interest to publish it, as the US government could “inflict on the citizens of the United Kingdom a very considerable increase in the dangers they face at a time when a serious terrorist threat still pertains”.

The joint judgment by Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones registered its concern that the document remained secret. “In the light of the long history of the common law and democracy which we share with the United States it was in our view difficult to conceive that a democratically elected and accountable government could possibly have any rational objection to placing into the public domain such a summary of what its own officials reported, as to how a detainee was treated by them and which made no disclosure of sensitive intelligence matters”.

The judgment continued, “Indeed we did not consider that a democracy governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress a summary of the evidence contained in reports by its own officials…relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be”.

Continued  >>

Tags:, , , , , , ,
Posted in Commentary, Human rights, Uncategorized, US policy | Leave a Comment »

Secrets behind torture victim’s detention

February 5, 2009
MICHAEL SETTLE, UK Political Editor | The Herald, Feb 5, 2009

Binyam Mohamed claims to be a humble cleaner from London. The US military has a different view, believing him to be a dangerous terrorist.

The 31-year-old terror suspect, who now finds himself at the centre of an extraordinary row between British judges and the US authorities, has been incarcerated in the controversial camp at Guantanamo Bay since September 2004.

He was born in Ethiopia and came to Britain as a teenager in 1994, seeking asylum. He was given leave to remain and studied and worked as a janitor in London.

However, in 2002, he was arrested in Pakistan and then allegedly rendered to Morocco.

His lawyers claim that during his 18 months in north Africa he was tortured, including having a razor blade held to his penis.

He is said to have made confessions at Bagram, in Afghanistan, between May and September 2004, and at Guantanamo Bay before November that year.

He was originally charged with involvement in a “dirty bomb” plot, but that was withdrawn and the US authorities said new charges might be brought.

But no fresh indictment was filed, and on January 22 US President Barack Obama issued an executive order that no new charges should be sworn, pending a review of the position of all those detained at Guantanamo Bay.

Mohamed insists evidence against him was based on confessions extracted by torture and ill treatment – claims denied by the US authorities. Now there is speculation that he could soon be released.

He wrote to his lawyer Clive Stafford Smith recently that “several reliable sources” had told him his release to Britain had been approved.

He has been on hunger strike to protest against his continued imprisonment. “I should have been home a long time ago,” the Ethiopian said in the letter dated December 29.

Earlier in August, two High Court judges ruled MI5 had participated in his unlawful interrogation and said the UK had a duty to disclose what it knew about his treatment.

The information, described as a “short summary” of Mohamed’s treatment by the US, was supplied to the court on the condition that it not be released publicly. Yesterday’s ruling was the result of an appeal by the media against the documents being withheld.

While the same judges ruled the dossier provided by the US authorities should remain secret, they bitterly criticised the Americans over the way they had sought to prevent the information from being released, particularly as it was “relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment – politically embarrassing though it might be”.

In the end, they decided to suppress the material because David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, played the national security card, telling them he believed there to be a “real risk” the potential loss of intelligence co-operation would seriously increase the threat from terror faced by the UK.

The Foreign Office backed up the line, saying: “Intelligence relationships, especially with the United States, are vital to Britain’s national security. They are based on an assumption of trust.”

This is not the first time America has sought to restrict a UK court’s access to information.

In 2007, the US military was criticised for failing to provide an inquest with evidence about the death of British soldier Matty Hull in a friendly fire incident involving American jets in Iraq.

There have also been previous cases where the UK Government has cited national security in making major legal decisions.

In 2006, a long-running Serious Fraud Office investigation into a multi-billion pound BAE Systems arms deal with Saudi Arabia was controversially halted.

Having applauded Barack Obama for signing an order to close Guantanamo Bay, human rights campaigners and opposition MPs now fear that the heavy-handed non-disclosure policy that existed under the Bush administration is simply continuing blithely under its successor.

Pressure will undoubtedly grow today for Mr Miliband to answer MPs’ questions at the Commons despatch box; it will be interesting to see if he will comply.

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Human rights, US policy | Leave a Comment »

The trail of torture

October 17, 2008

That the White House authorised ‘waterboarding’ is disturbing. But that no one in mainstream US politics seems to care is worse


The revelation, in yesterday’s Washington Post, that the Bush administration “issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that explicitly endorsed the agency’s use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaida suspects” will increase calls for the administration to be held to account for its actions.

It is unlikely, though, that this revelation will lead to significant activity, beyond adding more voices to grassroots impeachment campaigns in the United States – although it may lead to a strengthening of plans in various European countries to indict senior officials for war crimes. As law professor Scott Horton explained in June, the best that opponents of the regime can hope for is that the “Bush administration officials who pushed torture will need to be careful about their travel plans.”

The problem for all parties concerned is that the administration itself still refuses to concede that it has engaged in torture, and is being allowed to get away with it in the two places where opposition could really count: the Senate and the House of Representatives. Rather than pursuing senior officials, house Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi declared that impeachment was “off the table” after the Democrats gained a majority in the House of Representatives two years ago. A month earlier, politicians had endorsed the executive’s attempts to shield itself and its employees from any liability for their actions by passing the Military Commissions Act, parts of which were clearly intended to exempt US officials from being prosecuted for war crimes.

Freed from direct challenges, the administration has, instead, attempted to stifle all mention of torture in its dealings with prisoners seized in the “war on terror”.

A case in point is the British resident Binyam Mohamed. According to his lawyers at the legal action charity Reprieve, Mr Mohamed, who was seized in Pakistan in April 2002, was sent to Morocco by the CIA (before the agency brought torture “in-house”), where proxy torturers extracted a number of false confessions from him. As a result, he was accused of plotting to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in a US city, and was put forward for trial by military commission at Guantánamo.

However, just last week, when a judge in Washington, DC finally had the opportunity to review his case, the US justice department chose to drop the charges relating to the “bomb plot” rather than pursue them, presumably because senior officials were aware that the entire trail of decision-making as to why Mr Mohamed was rendered to Morocco led to the highest levels of government, and to the kinds of discussions between the CIA and senior officials – including Vice President Dick Cheney and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld – that were discussed in yesterday’s article in the Washington Post.

Even so, Mr Mohamed may still face the same charges in a trial by military commission, because the defence department, safe from judicial scrutiny, still believes that it can pursue prosecutions in a system that is so rigged that, when one of the prosecutors, Lt Col Darrel Vandeveld, resigned two weeks ago, he expressed his profound doubts that the system was “capable of delivering justice”.

The fact that some of these cases – like that of Mr Mohamed – involve the alleged use of extraordinary rendition and torture by or on behalf of the CIA only serves to confirm that even confirmed critics and opponents of the administration’s detention and interrogation policies in the “war on terror” are a long way from holding senior officials to account. Perhaps the greatest shame, however, is that out on the campaign trail, where these issues ought to count for something, they are not being mentioned at all.

Tags:, , , , , , ,
Posted in Commentary, Human rights, imperialism, US policy | Leave a Comment »

Lawyers say UK Guantánamo suspect has no hope of fair trial

October 3, 2008

The system of US military courts is so politically biased that Binyam Mohamed, a British resident held at Guantánamo Bay, has no prospect of a fair trial, his lawyers said yesterday.

A number of prosecutors appointed by the US defence department have resigned in protest at the procedures’ perceived prejudice. Judges presiding over the military commissions, as they are called, have also attacked the way trials have been conducted at the detention centre in Cuba.

Individuals singled out for attack include Pentagon official Susan Crawford, who will play a crucial role in Mohamed’s trial, which is expected to start shortly, and her legal adviser, Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann.

Mohamed, 30, an Ethiopian national and British resident, was held in Pakistan in 2002, when he was questioned by an MI5 officer. He was later secretly rendered to Morocco, where he says was tortured by having his penis cut with a razor blade. The US subsequently flew him to Afghanistan and he was transferred to Guantánamo Bay in September 2004.

He denies any connection with terrorism, including claims he was involved in a “dirty bomb” plot, and says any confessions he may have made were extracted during torture.

Colonel Morris Davis, chief prosecutor of the military commissions, resigned from his post a year ago, saying fair trials were impossible and that the system had become “deeply politicised”. He said Crawford, the “convening authority” in the Mohamed case, overstepped her role by directing the prosecution in a way that “perpetuates the perception of a rigged process stacked against the accused”.

Hartmann was responsible for submitting recommendations about Binyam’s case to Crawford, which defence lawyers have not been allowed to see. After US military commission judges ruled that Hartmann improperly influenced prosecutors and used evidence from interrogations that involved coercive techniques, the US defence department last month removed him from his post, where he was directly responsible for preparing individual military trials at Guantánamo Bay. However, he will remain overall director of the commission’s operations.

Commenting on the move, Davis said: “Elevating his deputy and leaving him in the process, I’m afraid, will be like the Vladimir Putin-Dmitry Medvedev relationship where there’s some real doubt over who pulls the strings.”

Andy Worthington of Reprieve, the legal action charity whose lawyers represent Mohamed, said: “The military commission system is a mockery of justice. The case against Binyam Mohamed is irredeemably tainted by its association with Brigadier General Hartmann, and should immediately be dismissed.”

The British government is refusing to release information which, Mohamed’s lawyers say, would show he had been tortured and that both UK and US security and intelligence agencies knew about it.

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Human rights, US policy | Leave a Comment »

Chomsky: Britain Failed To Stop US Shameful Acts

September 1, 2008

RINF.COM, August 31, 2008

Britain has failed in its duty to stop the US from committing “shameful acts” in the treatment of suspects detained during the war on terror, one of America’s most respected intellectuals Noam Chomsky warns.

In an interview with The Independent, Professor Chomsky calls on the government to use its special relationship with Washington to secure the closure of Guantanamo Bay.

The emeritus professor of linguistics said that he has heard only “twitters of protest” in the UK asking British “thinkers” to be more conspicuous in their opposition to the erosion of civil rights since the 9.11 attacks on the US.

In the wake of the invasion of Iraq, Prof Chomsky, a leading opponent of the Vietnam conflict, has been the most prominent among US intellectuals critical of the war with the Iraq and the treatment of terror suspects sent to Guantanamo Bay and other prison camps around the world.

Chomsky’s comments call into question Britain’s political and intellectual will to stand up for the rule of law in the face of actions that have been repeatedly condemned by courts on both sides of the Atlantic.

“A country,” says Chomsky, “with any shred of self-respect will be vigilant to ensure that it does not take part in this criminal savagery. Because of the “special relationship,” Britain has a particularly strong responsibility to bar these shameful crimes in any way it can. In whatever respect the relationship is “special”, the UK can use it to bar these shameful crimes.”

Asked whether Britain should be doing more to seek the closure of the Guantanamo Bay, Chomsky answered: “Definitely. I’ve seen only twitters of protest.”

Professor Chomsky believes that the case against Guantanamo needs to be made more forcefully.

“We hardly needed evidence that Gitmo was going to be a torture chamber,” clarifies Chomsky. “Otherwise, why not place “enemy combatants” in a prison in New York? The security argument is not serious. Taking a step back, does the US have the right to hold these prisoners at all? Hardly obvious. In brief, there are plenty of grounds for protest (and action), at varying levels of depth.”

His comments have met with broad support from those who have been campaigning for the British government to take a more critical position in its relationship with the Bush administration.

Clive Stafford Smith, the lawyer representing British Guantanamo detainee, Binyam Mohamed, said: “Professor Chomsky is right. To borrow from President Clinton, the world is much more impressed by the power of America’s example than the example of American power…A true friend to American would not stand by while President Bush squanders America’s birthright.”

Andrew Tyrie MP, chairman of the all party parliamentary group on rendition, said: “The UK Government’s reaction to the US program of rendition: a policy of kidnapping people and taking them to places where they may be tortured, has been inadequate, to say the least. It is scarcely credible that now, despite all we know about rendition and the UK’s involvement in it, the British Government still refuses to condemn this illegal, immoral, and counterproductive policy.”

Professor Chomsky, professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technolog, says that the US must now hand Guantanamo Bay back to Cuba.

“The region was taken by a ‘treaty’ that Cuba was forced to sign under military occupation. The US has been violating the terms of this outrageous treaty for decades – e.g., using it for holding Haitians who were illegally captured when they were feeling terror in Haiti. Current use also radically violates the terms of the outrageous treaty. ”

Rise of the libertarian socialist
Noam Chomsky, 79, rose to prominence in the field of linguistics during the 1950s by positing new theories on the structures of language. His naturalistic approach to the study of linguistics deeply influenced thinking in both psychology and philosophy. But it was his strident opposition to the Vietnam War which brought him to the attention of a wider American public.

Through his adherence to libertarian socialism he became a cheerleader for the dissident left in opposition to many aspects of US foreign policy. Later he described his belief as “the proper and natural extension of classical liberalism into the era of advanced industrial society”.

Professor Chomsky, who lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, has been an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq and the “war on terror”. In 2005 he was voted the leading living public intellectual in the Global Intellectuals Poll run by the magazine Prospect. His characteristic reaction to the news of his achievement was: “I don’t pay a lot of attention to polls.”

Tags:, , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Commentary, Human rights, Uncategorized, USA | 1 Comment »

A UK Window on CIA Abuses

August 30, 2008

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.

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in Commentary, Human rights, Pakistan, US policy, USA, War Criminals | Leave a Comment »

U.K. Government Must Provide Information About Rendition, Disappearance and Torture, Urges Amnesty International

August 30, 2008

CommonDreams.0rg

WASHINGTON – August 29 – Amnesty International today called on the government of the U.K. to give the lawyers for Binyam Mohamed, a former U.K. resident imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, information which it holds and which might help him to show that he has been a victim of torture and other ill-treatment in the U.S.-led program of renditions and secret detention.

“Providing this information would be a first step towards accountability for the U.K.’s involvement in the U.S. program of rendition and secret detention, as well as in the torture and other ill-treatment of terrorist suspects,” said Halya Gowan, a spokesperson on Europe at Amnesty International.

Binyam Mohamed was arrested at Karachi airport in April 2002 and transferred to U.S. custody three months later. In July 2002, he was transferred on a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-registered plane to Morocco, where he was held for about 18 months. There, Binyam Mohamed reports he was tortured, including having his penis cut by a razor blade. He was allegedly subjected to further torture after his further rendition to the “dark prison” in Kabul, Afghanistan, in January 2004. After five months, he was transferred to the U.S. airbase in Bagram, and suffered further alleged ill-treatment there. Binyam was transferred in mid-September 2004 to Guantanamo where he has remained ever since.

“Statements that Binyam Mohamed made in the course of his unlawful detention will form the basis of charges against him if he is tried before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay – a trial which would be unfair, and could involve charges which could be punishable by death. Any information the U.K. authorities have which relates to violations of his human rights or could affect Binyam Mohamed’s defense should be disclosed to his lawyers without any further delay,” said Gowan.

Following last week’s ruling by the High Court of England and Wales, that the United Kingdom has a duty to disclose this information to lawyers for Binyam Mohamed, today the High Court postponed its decision on an application made by the U.K. Foreign Secretary to be allowed to withhold this information. The Foreign Secretary claimed that its disclosure would damage the U.K.’s intelligence-sharing arrangements with the United States, and thus threaten the United Kingdom’s national security. The Foreign Secretary has been given another week to provide the court with a fuller explanation for continuing to withhold this information.

Binyam Mohamed’s lawyers need the information now, before a decision is taken about whether he should be tried by a military commission in the United States. It is essential to their claim that the information on which the charges against him are based was improperly obtained.

Recent revelations of secret detainee transfers through Diego Garcia, and around the Untied Kingdom’s involvement in the rendition and secret detention of U.K .residents Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna, show that the United Kingdom can no longer hide its involvement in these human rights violations.

“Secrecy with the excuse of protecting diplomatic relations can no longer be used to justify the failure to investigate the involvement of U.K. agents in human rights violations,” Gowan said.

Amnesty International calls on the U.K. authorities to immediately instigate a genuinely independent and impartial public inquiry into all allegations of U.K. involvement in the renditions program.

BACKGROUND

Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian national, claims that he was subjected to torture and other ill-treatment in Pakistan, Morocco, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. The detainee claims that statements he made–which, as the High Court affirmed, will form the basis of evidence against him if he is tried by a military commission -were the products of his unlawful detention, torture and ill-treatment.

In August 2007, after a sustained campaign by human rights activists and lawyers in the United Kingdom, the U.K. government requested the release from Guantanamo Bay a number of former U.K. residents, including Binyam Mohamed. Although three men were returned in December 2007, the U.S. authorities refused the request for the release and return of Binyam Mohamed. The U.K. authorities say that they are continuing to request the release and return of Binyam Mohamed.

The U.K. government has disclosed the information that it holds about Binyam Mohamed to the U.S. authorities; and the U.S. authorities have given the U.K. a promise that this information will be given to Binyam Mohamed’s military lawyer in the event that his case should be sent for trial before a military commission. But to date neither the United Kingdom nor the United States has disclosed that information–relevant to the rendition of Binyam Mohamed and his subsequent treatment in detention–to his lawyers.

Amnesty International believes that the military commission procedures at Guantanamo Bay are fundamentally unfair, and has called for the military commission system to be abandoned, and for all those still held at Guantanamo Bay to be released or given a genuinely fair trial before federal civilian courts without delay.

For more information, please visit Amnesty International’s website at www.amnestyusa.org or contact the AIUSA media office.

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in Commentary, Human rights, Pakistan, US policy, USA, War Criminals | Leave a Comment »

Newer Entries »