Amnesty International has called on the British government to hand over to Guantanamo Bay prisoner Binyam Mohammed’s lawyers, vital information it holds on him.
Binyam Mohamed is a former UK resident imprisoned in the US concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, and the information might help prove that he has been a victim of torture and other ill-treatment in the US-led programme of renditions and secret detention.
‘Providing this information would be a first step towards accountability for the UK’s involvement in the US programme of rendition and secret detention, and in the torture and other ill-treatment of terrorist suspects,’ said Halya Gowan, a spokesperson for Amnesty International.
Binyam Mohamed was arrested at Karachi airport in April 2002 and handed over into US custody three months later.
In July 2002, he was transferred on a CIA-registered plane to Morocco, where he was held for about 18 months and allegedly 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 US airbase in Bagram, and suffered further alleged ill-treatment there, before being 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 which the UK authorities have which relates to violations of his human rights or could help Binyam Mohamed’s defence should be disclosed to his lawyers without any further delay’, said Halya Gowan.
Following last week’s ruling by the High Court of England and Wales that the UK had a duty to disclose this information to Binyam Mohamed’s lawyers, the High Court, on Monday, postponed its decision on an application made by British Foreign Secretary David Miliband to be allowed to withhold this information.
Miliband claimed that its disclosure would damage the UK’s intelligence-sharing arrangements with the US, and thus threaten the UK’s national security.
The Foreign Secretary had been given another week to provide the court with a fuller explanation for continuing to withhold this information.
But Binyam Mohamed’s lawyers need the information immediately, before a decision is taken about whether he should be tried by a Military Commission in the US.
It is essential to their claim that they can show 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 UK’s involvement in the rendition and secret detention of UK residents Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna, show that the UK can no longer hide its involvement in these human rights violations’ Amnesty’s Gowan continued.
‘Secrecy with the excuse of protecting diplomatic relations can no longer be used to justify the failure to investigate the involvement of UK agents in human rights violations’.
Amnesty International calls on the UK authorities to instigate without further delay a genuinely independent and impartial public inquiry into all allegations of UK involvement in the renditions programme.
Binyam Mohamed, originally from Ethiopia but resident in the UK, claims that he was subjected to torture and other ill-treatment in Pakistan, Morocco, Afghanistan and Guantanamo, and that statements he made – which, as the High Court accepted, 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 UK, the British government requested the release from Guantanamo Bay and the return to the UK of a number of former UK residents, including Binyam Mohamed.
Although three men were returned in December 2007, the US authorities refused to release and return Mohamed.
The UK authorities claim that they are continuing to request his release and return.
The UK government has disclosed the information that it holds about Binyam Mohamed to the US authorities, but they have ‘promised’ the UK that this information will only be given to a US military lawyer in the event Mohamed’s case should be sent for trial before a Military Commission.
But to date, neither the UK nor the US has disclosed any information which is relevant to his rendition and subsequent treatment in detention, to his lawyers.
Amnesty International condemns the Military Commission procedures at Guantanamo Bay as fundamentally unfair, and has called for the Military Commission system to be abandoned, and for all those still held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp to be released or given a genuinely fair trial before federal civilian courts without delay.
Lord Justice Thomas and Justice Lloyd Jones handed down their second judgment on Monday afternoon on Binyam Mohamed’s case.
Foreign Secretary Miliband had already been given one week in which to reconsider the government’s refusal to share evidence on Mohamed that could help prove his innocence.
The judges decided that his claim of ‘Public Interest Immunity’ (PII) was insufficiently supported, in that he had not properly taken into account the torture suffered by Mohamed.
The judges decided that Miliband’s evaluation of the case ‘failed to address, in light of the allegations made by (Binyam Mohamed), the abhorrence and condemnation accorded to torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.’ (UK Judgment II, at para. 20.)
Reprieve, the legal charity, says: ‘In other words, the Foreign Secretary has balanced Mohamed’s right to a fair trial with the strong US desire that this information not be disclosed, and come down in favour of the Bush Administration’ – which is, Reprieve contends, ‘itself a difficult outcome to justify.
‘But the Court found that Miliband had not forthrightly taken into account the fact that Mohamed has gone through torture of a medieval quality prior to facing a military commission in Guantanamo Bay.
‘Rather than simply tell him what his job should be, the Court gave Miliband another week – until Friday, September 5th, 2008 – to reconsider.’
As Clive Stafford Smith, Director of Reprieve, explained after the release of the second judgment:
‘The British government’s action has, frankly, been embarrassing. The government says it wants to help Binyam Mohamed, yet then has the nerve to pretend that the British public interest is best served by covering up America’s criminal act of kidnapping and torturing him.’
He added: ‘The British government effectively says that a British resident’s right to a fair trial is less important than avoiding embarrassing the Bush Administration, and we’ll just gloss over the fact that he was tortured.
‘But British national security cannot ever be enhanced by torture. To borrow from President Bill Clinton’s speech two days ago – “the world is more impressed by the power of our example, than the example of America abusing its power”. To suggest otherwise is, surely, Britain going back to the role of poodle.’
Richard Stein of lawyers Leigh Day & Co, who are representing Binyamin Mohamed at the High Court, said: ‘Today’s judgment discloses the shocking fact that the Foreign Secretary failed to give any proper weight in secret submissions he made to the Court to the abhorrence of torture when he purported to determine that it was in the public interest not to disclose the evidence of ill-treatment to our client.
‘This is extremely surprising given that this case is all about Binyam’s rendition and his torture at the behest of the US. The Court has given the Foreign Secretary a further chance to reconsider his position before passing judgment. We await his response with interest.’
