Alleged torture victim to be freed from Guantanamo

Paul Woodward, Online Correspondent

• Last Updated: February 22. 2009 9:23AM UAE / February 22. 2009 5:23AM GMT

Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian-born British resident who has been held without charge for seven years, is expected to be released from Guantanamo Bay and return to Britain early this week.

Mr Mohamed's detention and allegations that he was tortured while subject to the "extraordinary rendition" programme adopted by the Bush administration and yet to be abandoned by the Obama administration, have led to legal proceedings in both the US and the UK.

As recently as the beginning of this month Mr Mohamed, who had been on hunger strike since Jan 5, was described as being "close to death". Lieutenant colonel Yvonne Bradley, a US military lawyer who visited him in late January said, "He is just skin and bones. The real worry is that he comes out in a coffin."

BBC News reported that Lord Carlile, who is reviewing the laws on terrorism in the UK, said: "I would expect a light and gentle touch to be applied to ensure that he [Mr Mohamed] is not harassed in any way by the authorities and is given every opportunity, subject to the law, to integrate himself back into British society." He added: "I hope very much, and I trust, that he will be given every facility available to be able to return to a normal life as a British resident."

Although the US government accused Mr Mohamed of having a role in a plot to detonate a 'dirty bomb' in America, all charges against him were dropped last year.

Mr Mohamed has denied the allegations and claims he made false confessions while being tortured and that British intelligence officers from MI5 were complicit in his abuse.

He said that after being detained in Karachi in 2002, he was secretly flown from Pakistan to Morocco and tortured before being moved to Kabul in Afghanistan and then on to Guantanamo Bay.

A report by the American Civil Liberties Union on Mr Mohamed's treatment while in detention alleged: "In Morocco his interrogators routinely beat him, sometimes to the point of losing consciousness, and he suffered multiple broken bones. During one incident, Mohamed was cut 20 to 30 times on his genitals. On another occasion, a hot stinging liquid was poured into open wounds on his penis as he was being cut. He was frequently threatened with rape, electrocution and death. He was forced to listen to loud music day and night, placed in a room with open sewage for a month at a time and drugged repeatedly...

"On Jan 21, 2004, approximately 18 months after he was unlawfully rendered to Morocco, Mohamed was again handcuffed, blindfolded, placed in a van and driven to an airfield. He was stripped, photographed extensively and told the photos were 'to show Washington' that his wounds were healing.

"Flight records show that on Jan 22, 2004, a Boeing-737 aircraft, registered with the FAA as N313P, left Rabat, Morocco at 2.05am and arrived in Kabul, Afghanistan at 9.58am that same day. The Council of Europe has concluded, based on these documents and other corroborating evidence, that this same aircraft was used by the CIA in the transportation and rendition of German citizen Khaled El Masri, from Skopje, Macedonia to Kabul, Afghanistan only two days later."

The cases of Mr Masri and Mr Mohamed were the subject of the documentary, Outlawed: Extraordinary Rendition, Torture and Disappearances in the "War on Terror".

The ACLU report continued: "After the aircraft landed in Kabul, Mohamed was taken to a US-run prison, commonly known as the 'Dark Prison'. Upon arrival at the 'Dark Prison,' Mohamed's captors repeatedly hit his head against the wall until he bled. He was thrown into a tiny cell measuring barely more than two metres in either direction and chained to the floor. Despite the extreme cold, he was given only shorts and a thin shirt to wear and a single blanket as thin as a sheet.

"In US custody, Mohamed was fed meals of raw rice, beans and bread sparingly and irregularly. He was kept in almost complete darkness for 23 hours a day and made to stay awake for days at a time by loud music and other frightening and irritating recordings, including the sounds of 'ghost laughter,' thunder, aircraft taking off and the screams of women and children.

"Interrogations took place on almost a daily basis. As part of the interrogation process he was shown pictures of Afghans and Pakistanis and was interrogated about the story behind each picture. Although Mohamed knew none of the persons pictured, he would invent stories about them so as to avoid further torture. In May 2004, Mohamed was allowed outside for five minutes. It was the first time he had seen the sun in two years."

In June, 2008 The New York Times reported that the British government had sent a letter to Mr Mohamed's lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, confirming that it had a dossier about Mr Mohamed's allegations of abuse. His legal team subsequently successfully petitioned the government to turn over evidence of the abuse. The documents disclosed to Mr Mohamed's legal counsel were not released to the general public. The British High Court found in favour of the British foreign secretary David Milbank who asserted that releasing the information would harm Britain's intelligence relationship with the United States and would not serve the public interest.

Lord Carlile is now calling on the government to release the dossier and Bill Delahunt, the chairman of the US House of Representatives Human Rights Subcommittee is calling on the Obama administration to do likewise.

"The Sunday Telegraph has obtained a letter written by Mr Delahunt to US Attorney General Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, demanding they publish the unedited dossier on Mr Mohamed's treatment. He is also lobbying the White House counsel Greg Craig. Mr Holder is due to visit Guantanamo on Monday.

"The letter states: 'The United States should not restrict access to intelligence solely to prevent information that might prove politically embarrassing from becoming public, when it poses no legitimate national security threat. This is especially the case when the information in question bears on an allegation as deeply troubling as torture.

" 'I suggest that the US itself should make that information public, or at least remove our objection to its release. Justice and democratic accountability overwhelmingly support the release of this information.'

"A Congressional source revealed that the House judiciary committee as well as Mr Delahunt's human rights committee is prepared to launch their own inquiry. 'Unless Obama acts he is going to find himself in the middle of a congressional investigation,' the source said. 'People are jumping up and down to get to the truth.'"

At the same time, ABC News reported: "Hundreds if not thousands of military families registered their displeasure with the White House last night, expressing their displeasure with pending release of Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed, as reported yesterday by ABC News.

"Spurred to action by an e-mail alert titled 'Obama Releases His First Terrorist!', members of the group Military Families United - some of whom met with President Obama on Feb 6 - called the White House switchboard and comment line to argue that Mohamed should not be transfered to British custody next week, as planned."

Meanwhile, BBC News reported: "Detainees being held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan cannot use US courts to challenge their detention, the US says.

"The justice department ruled that some 600 so-called enemy combatants at Bagram have no constitutional rights.

"Most have been arrested in Afghanistan on suspicion of waging a terrorist war against the US.

"The move has disappointed human rights lawyers who had hoped the Obama administration would take a different line to that of George W Bush.

"Prof Barbara Olshansky, the lead counsel in a legal challenge on behalf of four Bagram detainees, told the BBC the justice department's decision not to reform the rules was both surprising and 'enormously disappointing'."

pwoodward@thenational.ae