Government appeals to keep Guantanamo Bay evidence from detainees

Published on Saturday 6 March 2010 19:20

THE battle by the security services and the government to keep evidence on Guantanamo Bay secret will go to the Court of Appeal tomorrow.

They plan to use the information as defence against a civil claim for damages for complicity in the ill-treatment of six former Guantanamo detainees

The six detainees – Binyam Mohamed, Bisher Al Rawi, Jamil El Banna, Richard Belmar, Omar Deghayes and Martin Mubanga – deny any involvement in terrorism and say MI5 and MI6 aided and abetted their unlawful imprisonment and extraordinary rendition to various locations around the world, including Guantanamo, where they say they were subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment and torture.

The intelligence services, Attorney General Baroness Scotland, the Foreign Office and the Home Office contest their damages claims.

At Monday's hearing the Court of Appeal – the Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, Lord Justice Maurice Kay and Lord Justice Sullivan – will consider the preliminary issue of whether large parts of the security services and government's defence can be kept secret from the former detainees, their lawyers and the public.

Mr Justice Silber ruled in the High Court in November last year that there was no reason in law why the court could not allow a "closed material procedure" to be used in a claim for damages.

This would mean that the government and security services would not have to disclose information to the claimants' lawyers if they felt that doing so would damage the interests of national security, international relations, detection and prevention of crime, or was likely to harm the public interest.

Instead, the material would be disclosed to "special advocates" – barristers who had been vetted and cleared for security.

Last month the Court of Appeal rejected a plea by Foreign Secretary David Miliband for information in six paragraphs of a judgment on a case involving Binyam Mohamed to be kept secret. Miliband had argued that publishing the paragraphs, which summarised information received by the British security services from United States intelligence, could have damaged the intelligence-sharing relationship between Britain and the United States.