A DEMONSTRATION outside the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square central London yesterday afternoon demanded the immediate release of Binyam Mohamed from Guantanamo Bay.
‘Binyam must be released now,’ said London Guantanamo Campaign member Aisha Maniar, ‘his health is deteriorating, he has said that the British state has been involved in rendition and torture and Foreign Secretary Miliband has refused to hand over the evidence that proves it.’
Joy Hurcombe said: ‘It’s disgusting what Miliband has done. By not saying that he had asked America to send a letter saying the documents should be suppressed he misled parliament,’ she alleged.
She added: ‘All the British citizens and residents in Guantanamo were victims of rendition and torture.
They were illegally arrested, sold by bounty hunters for $5000 and tortured in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Morocco and other CIA “dark sites”, subjected to abusive interrogations and then detained indefinitely.
‘We want Binyam back before he dies.’
Sadia, from Reprieve, said: ‘The UK government has been complicit in the rendition, torture and the subsequent cover-up and suppression of evidence which could prove Binyam is innocent.
‘Even the two High Court judges have expressed anger that their order for the release of the documents could be suppressed by the Foreign Office under the guise of national security.’
It emerged on Monday that an MI5 officer known as Witness B, admitted under cross examination in the High Court last year that he had questioned British resident Binyam Mohamed in Karachi in 2002.
Under cross examination, Witness B agreed that Mohamed was in ‘an extremely vulnerable position’ but he hadn’t asked him if he had been tortured or mistreated or asked why he had lost weight.
He admitted that he had told Mohamed that ‘he would get more lenient treatment if he cooperated’.
Mohamed’s lawyers went to the High Court last year to secure 42 US documents which reveal a high level policy of cooperation on ‘rendering’ from UK custody to the US, but Foreign Secretary Miliband blocked it claiming it would damage national security and UK-US relations.
Miliband’s officials then solicited and secured a letter from the State Department to back his claim.
