17 Oct 2009

British court rules in favour of torture claim release

5:01 pm on 17 October 2009

The High Court in Britain has ruled that US intelligence documents which a former Guantanamo Bay detainee says prove he was tortured should be published.

Ethiopian-born Binyam Mohamed, 31, who spent four years in the United States detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, claims British authorities colluded in his torture while he was in US custody in Morocco.

The British government had stopped judges publishing the claims on national security grounds, the BBC reports.

The government denies allegations of collusion and says it will appeal against the court's judgement.

Mr Mohamed, who once lived in London, was first detained in Pakistan in 2002. He was questioned there by an MI5 officer before being transferred to Morocco.

He says while in US custody in Morocco he was tortured at the behest of the CIA and asked questions supplied by British intelligence agency MI5.

The key document in the case is a summary of abuse allegations that US intelligence officers shared with their counterparts in London. Publication of the material will be delayed until an appeal takes place.

When the High Court gave its original judgement on the case last year, a seven-paragraph summary of Mr Mohamed's torture claims was removed on the orders of Foreign Secretary David Miliband.