Britannia Radio

Torture case 'cover up': Foreign Office officials 'spent months
colluding with U.S. to hush up claims'

By Dan Newling, Sam Greenhill and Ian Drury
Last updated at 1:43 AM on 20th February 2009

British collusion in U.S. torture of suspected terrorists was covered up
after extensive top-level talks between the two governments, it can be
revealed.

Foreign Office officials spent three months working with their American
counterparts to hush up the allegations made by Binyam Mohamed, it was
claimed.

Mohamed, a British resident, has spent six years in U.S. custody -
including a spell in the notorious Guantanamo Bay.

Officials working for David Miliband sent the U.S. State Department a
stream of letters and emails about Mohamed's allegations.

So serious were the Foreign Secretary's concerns that he even dispatched
his top legal adviser, Daniel Bethlehem QC, to Washington to meet
American officials, court documents reveal.

Following the frantic discussions, the Americans claimed that Britain's
national security could be put at risk if the torture allegations were
made public.

Mr Miliband used this claim to bury the scandal, as it convinced judges
to issue a Public Interest Immunity certificate preventing the detailed
allegations being aired in the UK.

Later, it emerged Mr Miliband had actually solicited the U.S. letter
which won over the judges.

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Edward Davey said: 'It is
clear from the extensive communications between the two governaments
that they were frantically trying to cook up a way of making this whole
thing go away.'

Former shadow Home Secretary David Davis added: 'This bears all the
hallmarks of David Miliband trying to create a U.S. umbrella to protect
him from the fallout of the Binyam Mohamed episode.

'He needs to explain in precise detail exactly what deals were struck
with America during this period of extraordinarily frenetic activity to
prevent the release of these documents.'

Ethiopian-born Mohamed came to the UK as a 16-year-old asylum seeker and
lived here for seven years.

Shortly after September 11, 2001, he was picked up by the U.S. secret
service in Pakistan and accused of being a terrorist.

The 30-year-old claims he was hung by his wrists, beaten, deprived of
sleep and had his genitals sliced with scalpel during the six and a half
years he has spent in U.S. custody.

In June last year the British Government discovered evidence which
appeared to confirm these claims.

The Foreign Office immediately sent the information to the U.S. There
followed three months of top-level discussions between the two
countries.

On June 16 Mr Bethlehem was dispatched to meet legal officials at the
Department of Defence and the State Department.

According to High Court documents, the U.S. and British lawyers
discussed 'in detail' the torture allegations in the British documents.

Between them, Mohamed's lawyers claim, they agreed the solution - the
Americans would claim that releasing the information could lead them to
withdraw their intelligence- sharing agreement and therefore harm British
national security.

Following the apparent agreement, Mr Miliband wrote to John Bellinger,
the State Department's chief legal advisor, asking him to put in writing
the claim that the documents would damage British national security.

Mr Bellinger duly obliged, sparing Mr Miliband from having to release
potentially damaging evidence of British collusion in torture.

Although Mohamed has been cleared of terror charges and is due to be
returned to Britain shortly, his lawyers are still pushing for the truth
about his treatment to be disclosed.

It has been alleged that not only did British spies know about the
torture, but they did nothing to stop it - and even benefited from it.
Timeline

June 6, 2008 - Foreign Office writes to the U.S. State Department
saying it has uncovered documents indicating Mohamed was tortured

June 16 Daniel Bethlehem QC, the Foreign Office's senior legal adviser,
travels to the U.S. to discuss the issue with American official

August 21 State Department chief legal adviser John Bellinger writes to
the Foreign Office, claiming: 'Public disclosure ...would result in
serious damage to the U.S. national security and could harm existing
intelligence info sharing arrangements'

August 26 Foreign Secretary David Miliband issues his Public Interest
Immunity certificate in which he cites the American letter claiming that
disclosure would harm national security

http://www.dailymai l.co.uk/news/ article-1150802/ Torture-case- cover-
Foreign-Office- officials- spent-months- colluding- U-S-hush- claims.html

--