UK Government Forced To Reveal Its Cooperation In Torture Of Binyam Mohamed

A British resident facing a life sentence at Guantánamo Bay has won a battle in a British court to force the government to hand over documents showing he was tortured into confessing he was a terrorist. Binyam Mohamed, once a cleaner in Kensington, west London, is accused by the US of being an al-Qaida terrorist intent on the mass murder of civilians.

Yesterday it emerged that the high court had rejected a British government attempt to avoid a court hearing which would decide whether it should reveal evidence showing Mohamed was tortured by the US. Mohamed, through his lawyers, who have visited him in Guantánamo, alleges he was “rendered” to Morocco, where his torture included his genitals being slashed.

The high court found the UK government supplied America with information to interrogate Mohamed and said the hearing should be held as soon as possible. Mohamed’s lawyer, Clive Stafford-Smith, said: “I have seen not one shred of evidence against him that was not tortured out of him. We know the British talked to Binyam in Pakistan, told him he was to be rendered and gave information to the US that was used in his torture in Morocco.”

Despite this torture, Mr. Mohamed has stated that his lowest point came when his interrogators questioned him about his life in London, and he realized that they were privy to personal details that could only have been supplied by the British intelligence services. In Guantánamo, Mr. Mohamed explained to his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith of the legal action charity Reprieve “The interrogator told me, ‘We have been working with the British, and we have photos of people given to us by MI5. Do you know these?’ … To say that I was disappointed at this moment would be an understatement”

Seized in Pakistan in April 2002, as he attempted to fly back to the UK, he spent three months in Pakistani custody, where he was interrogated by agents of the US intelligence services — and on one occasion by British agents — and was then rendered to Morocco, where proxy torturers, working on behalf of the US, tortured him horribly in brutal “interrogations,” which regularly involved cutting his penis with a razor blade.

Mr. Mohamed’s torture continued when he was flown to Afghanistan in January 2004, and held at the “Dark Prison,” a secret CIA-run prison near Kabul, which was, effectively, a medieval dungeon with the addition of extremely loud and repetitive music and noise, pumped into the cells 24 hours a day. He was then transferred to the US military prison at Bagram airbase, where the abuse was so severe that several prisoners were killed.

• Binyam is so distressed by the announcement of the charges against him that he has embarked on a hunger strike.
• Binyam “began not eating food on May 2, 2008, when he was 146 lbs (10 stone 6 lbs),” but that this went unnoticed, because “the US military does not count it as a ‘hunger strike’ if the prisoner does not actually refuse the tray.” On May 18, therefore, when his weight had already dropped to 128 lbs (9 stone 2 lbs), Binyam began refusing the trays.
• Binyam stopped his strike temporarily, when Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve’s director, and Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley, his military lawyer, persuaded him to eat during the three days of their visit, but announced that he would resume on May 24. Stafford Smith explained, “Under the illegal procedures used by the US military in Guantánamo … they will consider him a ‘hunger striker’ and start force-feeding him when he reaches about 120 lbs (8 stone 8 lbs).” Stafford Smith thought that this might be on June 4 or 5.