LONDON (AP) - A British court on Friday gave Foreign Secretary David Miliband a week to justify his decision to suppress secret documents that lawyers for a Guantanamo detainee argue could prove their client was tortured in Morocco.
The High Court ruling came in the case of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident who was captured in Pakistan in April 2002 and is accused by the United States of conspiring with al-Qaida leaders to attack civilians. Mohamed's lawyers argue that the British government is withholding information about his treatment which is critical to his hope of receiving a fair trial.
Mohamed claims he spent 18 months in Morocco and was tortured before ultimately being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2004.
Because Mohamed was interviewed by British intelligence while in Pakistan, his attorneys sued the British government for access to records which they say could show he was mistreated. They sought 44 documents containing shared U.S. and British intelligence pertaining to their client, claiming they could shed light on his condition in captivity and under what circumstances he was moved to Morocco.
Miliband had said the documents should not be released for reasons of national security, arguing that to release them without U.S. permission would wreck intelligence-sharing with the United States. But the court ruled that Miliband's argument was incomplete because he did not show that the torture allegation was considered when he outlined his reasoning for withholding the documents.
Miliband now has until Sept. 5 to come up with a more compelling argument for keeping the documents secret, the court said.
According to Mohamed's account, obtained by The Associated Press in 2006, torturers sliced his penis with a scalpel and threatened to sever his private parts. Mohamed claims he was beaten, deprived of sleep and given mind-altering drugs.
U.S. authorities have yet to decide whether to try him.
Any evidence that Britain had knowledge of, or cooperated in, the torture of a British resident would be deeply embarrassing for the government, which is party to the Geneva Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights, both of which bar the practice.
Proof of torture could also hamper prosecution of his case should he face trial at Guantanamo. Evidence extracted under torture is inadmissible under the rules governing military tribunals.
The U.S. State Department sent a letter to the court promising to hand the documents to Mohamed's lawyers should he ever be charged — with some important strings attached. The documents can only be seen by two members of Mohamed's legal team, and names and locations carried in the documents will be blotted out.
But the human rights group, Reprieve, said the U.S. promise did not go far enough.
"We want the documents now so that we can argue that the 'trial' should not go ahead," said Clare Algar, Reprieve's executive director. She also argued that the redaction of the names of U.S. and British personnel from the documents would hobble Mohamed's defense because it would make it impossible to call them as witnesses.
U.S. Department of Defense spokesman, Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, said the U.S. was implementing its laws. He refused to comment on the accusations of torture, saying: "we're not going to discuss these allegations in a public forum."
In any case, the promised disclosure is routine for such trials. Lawyers for several detainees at Guantanamo have been given documents which they have used to argue for their clients' innocence.
While the British government has been spared the embarrassment of having to divulge intelligence information gathered with the help of its American ally — at least for now — the court could still try to drag the documents from the government directly.
A Foreign Office spokesman said the government was examining its legal options. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with department policy. |