Revealed: seven paragraphs on 'torture' that the government didn't want public to read

Published on Wednesday 10 February 2010 18:02

THE "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of a UK resident by US authorities has been revealed after Foreign Secretary David Miliband lost a bid to block the disclosure.

• Binyam Mohamed, who claims the government knew he was bring tortured, yesterday won the right for these seven key paragraphs to be published. Picture: Getty

Binyam Mohamed, 31, an Ethiopian granted refugee status in Britain in 1994, claimed he was tortured while held on suspicion of involvement in terrorism.

Intelligence information relating to the allegations was released yesterday after three of the country's highest-ranking judges dismissed Mr Miliband's appeal.

He had hoped to overturn an earlier court ruling that said summaries of information received by the British security services from United States intelligence should be disclosed.

The Court of Appeal decision was hailed by international media as a "resounding victory for freedom of speech".

The ruling by the Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, the Master of the Rolls Lord Neuberger, and the President of the Queen's Bench Division Sir Anthony May, related to publication of seven paragraphs, which had to be redacted from High Court judgments already handed down.

One of the key paragraphs – which were released after yesterday's decision was announced – stated that the reported treatment by the "United States authorities" of Mr Mohamed "could readily be contended to be at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading".

Mr Miliband told MPs the ruling was leading to a "great deal of concern" in the US.

In a statement to the Commons, he said he had fought to prevent the release of the information to defend the "fundamental" principle that intelligence shared with the UK would be protected.

This "control principle" was essential to the relationship between the UK and the US.

Mr Miliband said he had spoken to US secretary of state Hillary Clinton about the case, which was being "followed carefully at the highest levels in the US system with a great deal of concern".

The treatment of Mr Mohamed went against British principles but was not carried out by the UK, he said.

Yesterday's judgment was the latest ruling in long-running proceedings arising from the case of British resident Mr Mohamed.

Mr Mohamed was detained in Pakistan in 2002 on suspicion of involvement in terrorism and then "rendered" to Morocco and Afghanistan. He was sent to Guantanamo Bay in 2004. Now back in the UK, he is fighting to prove that British authorities helped to facilitate his detention and knew about his ill-treatment in Pakistan.

Lawyers for Mr Mohamed and the UK and international media had argued disclosure of the material was in the public interest.

They accused the government of seeking to suppress "embarrassing and shaming" evidence of Britain's involvement in torture.

They said sensitive admissions by the CIA to the British security service over the ill-treatment of Mr Mohamed raised the prospect of both UK and US governments being exposed to "serious criminal liability for a war crime".

Lawyers acting for the Foreign Secretary had accused the judges of "charging in" to a diplomatically sensitive area, jeopardising intelligence-sharing with the US.

After the ruling, Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said a public inquiry was now "inescapable". Lord Judge said Mr Mohamed was "taking civil proceedings for damages against the UK government, in effect for their tortious involvement in the wrongdoing of the US authorities".