NEWS

Binyam Mohamed: another blow for Miliband
Padraig Reidy: Judges have again thwarted the Foreign Secretary's attempts to conceal evidence
20 Nov 09

The High Court has again rejected claims made by the Foreign Office in an attempt to block the release of evidence relating to the detention of Binyam Mohamed.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband argues that the release of materials detailing Mohamed’s treatment at the hands of the CIA would seriously harm Britain’s intelligence-sharing relationship with the US.

According to the Guardian:

The judges revealed that seven paragraphs in a key document Miliband insists must remain secret “relate to admissions of what officials of the US did to BM during his detention in Pakistan”. They repeated their earlier finding that “what is contained in those seven redacted paragraphs gives rise to an arguable case of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment”.

The court has heard that a British security service officer interrogated Mohamed in Pakistan and officials passed information about him to the CIA. It was clear, the judges said, that the relationship of the UK to the US in connection with Mohamed “was far beyond that of a bystander or witness to the alleged wrongdoing”.

Read the rest here

By Padraig Reidy

Padraig Reidy is the editor of Little Atoms and a columnist for Index on Censorship. He has also written for The Observer, The Guardian, and The Irish Times.

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