Momentous decision

A BRITISH resident facing the death penalty at Guantanamo Bay has won his case for the government to disclose secret evidence that he says supports claims he was tortured into confessing to crimes he did not commit.

Binyam Mohamed, 30, who was arrested in Pakistan six years ago, says the Americans flew him to a prison in Morocco where he was tortured before his transfer to a US detention centre in Afghanistan.

In 2004, he was taken to the US Navy base in Cuba where he is awaiting a trial before a military commission on charges that he conspired with Al Qaeda leaders to plan terror attacks on civilians.

But this week the High Court in London said British authorities still held secret material that might help confirm Mr Mohamed’s whereabouts and the nature of his detention after 2002.

The judges said his allegations of torture were at least “arguable” and that the Security Service, MI5, had information relating to him that was “not only necessary but essential for his defence”.

In the ruling, the judges said the “conduct of the Security Service facilitated interviews by or on behalf of the US when Binyam Mohamed was being detained by the US incommunicado” in 2002 in Pakistan. Working with the Americans after the 9/11 terror attacks, the British authorities sent an officer from MI5 to interview him, the court said. The officer told him he could expect no help from Britain unless he fully cooperated with his US interrogators.

The court found that without the information held by MI5, Mr Mohamed would be unable to put up a defence to the charges against him at his US military tribunal. His lawyers yesterday described the ruling as a “a momentous decision”.

In 1994, Mr Mohamed, an Ethiopian by birth, was granted asylum in the UK.

— The Independent. London