The Guardian: British Officials Devised Torture Policy for Detainees

Bravo to Ian Cobain and Richard Norton-Taylor. Amidst the UK-US collusion to prevent documents on torture being seen by the British High Court and the attempt to prevent the story of the abuse of Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed (pictured) from emerging, they are explaining how Government officials established torture as a policy. This is the article that will appear in tomorrow's Guardian:

Whitehall devised torture policy for terror detainees

A policy governing the interrogation of terrorism suspects in Pakistan that led to British citizens and residents being tortured was devised by MI5 lawyers and figures in government, according to evidence heard in court.

A number of British terrorism suspects who have been detained without trial in Pakistan say they were tortured by Pakistani intelligence agents before being questioned by MI5. In some cases their accusations are supported by medical evidence.

The existence of an official interrogation policy emerged during cross-examination in the high court in London of an MI5 officer who had questioned one of the detainees, Binyam Mohamed, the British resident currently held in Guantánamo Bay. The officer, who can be identified only as Witness B, admitted that although Mohamed had been in Pakistani custody for five weeks, and he knew the country to have a poor human rights record, he did not ask whether he had been tortured or mistreated, did not inquire why he had lost weight, and did not consider whether his detention without trial was illegal.

Mohamed is expected to return to Britain soon after ending a five-week hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay, where he was being force-fed. After he was seen by British officials and a doctor over the weekend, the Foreign Office said he was medically fit to travel.

Cross-examined in the high court last year, Witness B acknowledged that Mohamed was in "an extremely vulnerable position" when he questioned him in Karachi in 2002. The MI5 officer admitted telling him that "he would get more lenient treatment if he cooperated", and said that he knew he was to be transferred to US custody.

Witness B was asked by Dinah Rose QC, for Mohamed: "Was it your understanding that it was lawful for Mr Mohamed to be transferred to the US authorities in this way?" Witness B replied: "I consider that to be a matter for the security service top management and for government."

Asked then whether the transfer concerned him, Witness B replied: "I was aware that the general question of interviewing detainees had been discussed at length by security service management legal advisers and government, and I acted in this case, as in others, under the strong impression that it was considered to be proper and lawful." He denied that he had threatened Mohamed and said the prisoner appeared well enough to be questioned.

Mohamed was eventually able to tell lawyers that before being questioned by MI5 he had been hung from leather straps, beaten and threatened with a firearm by Pakistani intelligence officers. After the meeting with MI5 he was "rendered" to Morocco where he endured 18 months of even more brutal torture, including having his genitals slashed with a scalpel. Some of the questions put to him under torture in Morocco were based on information passed by MI5 to the US.

The Guardian has learned from other sources that the interrogation policy was directed at a high level within Whitehall and that it has been further developed since Mohamed's detention in Pakistan. Evidence of this might emerge from 42 undisclosed US documents seen by the high court and sent to the MPs and peers on the intelligence and security committee (ISC).

Lawyers representing Mohamed went to the high court in an attempt to secure the disclosure of the documents, but the court reluctantly refused earlier this month after David Miliband, the foreign secretary, said such a move would damage national security and UK-US relations.

Miliband's position in the affair came under renewed attack yesterday after it emerged that his officials solicited a letter from the US state department to back up his claim that if the evidence was disclosed, Washington might stop sharing intelligence with Britain. The claim persuaded the high court judges to suppress what they called "powerful evidence" relating to Mohamed's ill-treatment.

Edward Davey, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, today described the move as possibly "one of the most outrageous deceptions of parliament, the judiciary and the British people. There must be an immediate investigation, with all related correspondence made public."

The FCO said it asked the US to make its position clear in writing "to inform both us and the court". It said it was "both perfectly sensible and the correct thing to do".

The high court said it was now up to the ISC to "hold those in charge of the secret intelligence service and security service and her majesty's government to account".

In a letter to the committee, Clive Stafford Smith, the director of Reprieve, says: "The ISC would want to know whether the intelligence services brought the issue of Mr Mohamed's abuse to the attention of the prime minister (then Mr Blair) – and, if not, why not." He said if the evidence had been brought to Blair's attention, "the ISC would want to know what, if anything, was done about it. If nothing was done, that would raise serious questions about the respect that the UK government has for its obligations under the convention against torture."

Evidence heard by the court in-camera – once the public and the media had been excluded – resulted in Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, asking the attorney general, Lady Scotland, to investigate "possible criminal wrongdoing" by both American and British security and intelligence officers.

Witness B's testimony is expected to be considered by MPs and peers on parliament's joint committee on human rights, which has begun an inquiry into allegations of British collusion in the torture of detainees in Pakistan, and is asking Miliband and Smith to give evidence.

A number of British terrorism suspects have been questioned by British intelligence officials, including MI5 officers, after periods of alleged torture by Pakistani interrogators. Last year Manchester crown court heard that MI5 and Greater Manchester police passed questions to Pakistani interrogators so they could be put to Rangzieb Ahmed, 35, from Rochdale. MI5 officers also interviewed him while he was in custody, although the head of the consular division at the British high commission was not informed about his detention for nine months. By the time Ahmed was deported to the UK 13 months later, and successfully prosecuted for terrorism offences, three of his fingernails had disappeared from his left hand. He says they were removed with pliers while he was being questioned about his associates in Pakistan, the July 2005 terrorist attacks in London, and an alleged plot against the United States.

While other detainees have also subsequently been prosecuted or deported to the UK and made subject to control orders, one vanished in bizarre circumstances and was subsequently said to have been killed in a US missile attack, although his family has not been given his body. A number have been released without charge.

A medical student from London who was held for almost two months in a building opposite the offices of the British deputy high commission in Karachi says he was tortured while being questioned about the 2005 London bombings before being questioned by British intelligence officers. He was released without charge and is now working at a hospital on the south coast of England, but is thought to remain deeply traumatised.

Guantanamo Update: Binyam Mohamed Coming Home, No Need to Talk about Torture

The New York Times offers the welcome news that, after six years in captivity, Binyam Mohamed "was examined Sunday by a British medical team at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in preparation for his return home".

Mohamed's release is the overwhelming priority. At the same time, there is the stench of action being taken to avoid embarrassment for US and British authorities. There has been a steady drip of emerging information, which we have tried to highlight, about Mohamed's torture, after his "rendition" from Pakistan, in Morocco and Afghanistan before he was taken to Guantanamo. The latest revelations of The Observer of London on Sunday of a UK-US collusion to keep evidence from being presented in the British High Court follows a letter from Mohamed's lawyer, Clive Stafford-Smith, to Barack Obama outlining the US Department of Defense is keeping information from the President.

Meanwhile the Obama Administration, far from owning up to the torture carried out against Mohamed and other detainees, is trying to block any public hearing in a US court as well as in Britain. It is the efforts of human rights organisations that are bringing out the confirmation, in hundreds of pages of heavily-censored US documents, of the scale of the abuses carried out in the name of the US Government.

So today we have the near-disgrace of the US media averting its eyes from state-sponsored crimes. CBS News has lengthy coverage of the Mohamed case, but papers like The Washington Post are silent.

And The New York Times? It mentions Mohamed's impending release in a four-sentence article but limits its attention to any abuses with "[Mohamed] says he was tortured while in American custody".

Update: Binyam Mohamed and the Hiding of Torture Evidence

Related Post: Binyam Mohamed - Guantanamo Torture Evidence Hidden from Obama
Related Post: Binyam Mohamed - "I Know Beyond a Doubt He Was Tortured"

On 4 February, we reported on a British High Court decision which reluctantly ruled that it could not consider documents related to the alleged torture of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The court said that US authorities had threatened to cut off intelligence-sharing with Britain if the evidence was disclosed.

Well, guess what? Turns out it was the British Foreign Office who asked the US to make the threat. From this morning's Observer of London:

[A] former senior State Department official said: "Far from being a threat, it was solicited [by the Foreign Office]." The Foreign Office asked for it in writing. They said: 'Give us something in writing so that we can put it on the record.' If you give us a letter explaining you are opposed to this, then we can provide that to the court."

The letter, sent by the State Department's top legal adviser John Bellinger to foreign secretary David Miliband's legal adviser, Daniel Bethlehem, on 21 August last year, said: "We want to affirm in the clearest terms that the public disclosure of these documents or of the information contained therein is likely to result in serious damage to US national security and could harm existing intelligence-sharing arrangements."

Binyam Mohamed: Guantanamo Torture Evidence Hidden from Obama

From The Guardian:

Binyam Mohamed, the UK resident detained in Guantánamo Bay, is to be visited by British officials and could be returned to Britain shortly, the foreign secretary, David Miliband, signalled today. The US authorities have agreed to treat Mohamed's case as "a priority", the minister said, enabling Britain to work with Washington for "a swift resolution".

London and Washington may want to act quickly, because yet more embarrassing detail on the case has emerged today.

Clive Stafford-Smith, Mohamed's lawyer, claims the US Department of Defense is preventing President Obama from seeing evidence of Mohamed's alleged mistreatment and torture. He has written to Obama:

You, as commander in chief, are being denied access to material that would help prove that crimes have been committed by US personnel. This decision is being made by the very people who you command.

Obama v. The Military (Again): The Closure of Guantanamo Bay

Binyam Mohamed at Guantanamo Bay: “I Know Beyond A Doubt He Was Tortured”

Andy Worthington lays out the narrative of the military's attempt to undercut President Obama's order for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in 12 months. Worthington's analysis is that Bush Administration political appointees within the Pentagon have been trying to find a way around Obama's command to suspend Military Commissions.

Worthington also reveals an important story missed by most of the media: the month-long hunger strike of at least 42 detainees. The lawyer for British resident Binyam Mohamed has claimed that at least 20 are in critical condition.

Who's Running Guantanamo?

On January 20, the answer to that question seemed obvious. In his inaugural speech, with George W. Bush standing just behind him, President Obama pointedly pledged to "reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals" -- a clear indication that, as he promised in a speech in August 2007, he would dismantle the extra-legal aberrations of the Bush administration's "War on Terror":

When I am President, America will reject torture without exception. America is the country that stood against that kind of behavior, and we will do so again ... As President, I will close Guantánamo, reject the Military Commissions Act, and adhere to the Geneva Conventions ... We will again set an example to the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers, and that justice is not arbitrary.

The next day, President Obama requested the military judges at Guantánamo to call a halt for four months to all proceedings in the Military Commissions at Guantánamo (the terror trials conceived by Dick Cheney and his close advisers in November 2001), to give the new administration time to review the system and to decide how best to progress with possible prosecutions.

The day after, he signed his first executive orders, stating that Guantánamo would be closed within a year, upholding the absolute ban on torture, ordering the CIA to close all secret prisons, establishing an immediate review of the cases of the remaining 242 prisoners in Guantánamo, and requiring defense secretary Robert Gates to ensure, within 30 days, that the conditions at Guantánamo conformed to the Geneva Conventions.

At first, everything seemed to be going well. Two judges immediately halted pre-trial hearings in the cases of the Canadian Omar Khadr and the five co-defendants accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks, and the President even secured an extra PR victory when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed architect of 9/11, who had been seeking a swift trial and martyrdom in the discredited Commission system, expressed his dissatisfaction to the judge. "We should continue so we don't go backward, we go forward," he said.

The first sign of dissent from the Pentagon

However, on January 29, the Commissions' recently appointed chief judge, Army Col. James M. Pohl, provided the first challenge to the President's plans, when he refused to suspend the arraignment of the Saudi Prisoner Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri, scheduled for today, February 9, stating that "he found the prosecutors' arguments, including the assertion that the Obama administration needed time to review its options, to 'be an unpersuasive basis to delay the arraignment.'"

Suddenly, urgent questions were raised about who was running Guantánamo, as it transpired that, although Barack Obama could request what he wanted, the Commissions, as Col. Pohl pointed out, had been mandated when "Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, which remains in effect." He added, "The Commission is bound by the law as it currently exists, not as it may change in the future."

Moreover, the only official empowered to call off al-Nashiri's arraignment was Susan Crawford, the Commissions' Convening Authority, who retains her position as the senior Pentagon official overseeing the trials, even though she is a protégée of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and a close friend of Cheney's Chief of Staff, David Addington, the two individuals who, more than any others, established the "arbitrary justice" that Barack Obama pledged to bring to an end.

After a few fraught days, Crawford was evidently prevailed upon to call off the arraignment, which she did on February 5, dismissing the charges without prejudice (meaning that they can be reinstated at a later date). She refused to comment on her decision, and in fact has only spoken out publicly on one occasion since being appointed in February 2007, when she admitted, in the week before Obama's inauguration, that the treatment to which Saudi prisoner Mohammed al-Qahtani was subjected amounted to torture. Instead, a Pentagon spokesman stepped forward to state, "It was her decision, but it reflects the fact that the President has issued an executive order which mandates that the Military Commissions be halted, pending the outcome of several reviews of our operations down at Guantánamo."

This was hardly sufficient to assuage doubts about why a Cheney protégée was still in charge of the Commissions, and these doubts were amplified when the Associated Press announced that two more Bush political appointees -- Sandra Hodgkinson, the former deputy assistant defense secretary for detainee affairs, and special assistant Tara Jones -- had been moved to civil service jobs within the Pentagon. Hodgkinson had spent several years defending the Bush administration's detention policies, and Jones, as the AP explained, worked for a Pentagon public affairs program "aimed at persuading military analysts to generate favorable news coverage on the war in Iraq, conditions at Guantánamo and other efforts to combat terrorism," which was "shut down amid fierce Capitol Hill criticism and investigations into whether it violated Pentagon ethics and Federal Communications Commission policy."

The mass hunger strike

However, while Col. Pohl's dissent and the continuing presence of Susan Crawford raise serious doubts about the Pentagon's ability -- or willingness -- to embrace President Obama's post-Bush world, the most troubling developments are at Guantánamo itself. Although Robert Gates, the only senior Bush administration official specifically retained by Obama, has shown a willingness to adjust to the new conditions (which is, presumably, what encouraged Obama to retain him in the first place), it seems unlikely that, even with the best will in the world, he can address the problems currently plaguing Guantánamo in the remaining twelve days of the time allotted to him to review the conditions at the prison.

A month ago -- inspired, in particular, by the seventh anniversary of the prison's opening, and by the change of administration -- at least 42 prisoners at Guantánamo embarked on a hunger strike. According to guidelines laid down by medical practitioners, force-feeding mentally competent prisoners who embark on a hunger strike is prohibited, but at Guantánamo this obligation has never carried any weight. Force-feeding has been part of the regime throughout its history, and was vigorously embraced in January 2006, in response to an intense and long-running mass hunger strike, when a number of special restraint chairs were brought to Guantánamo, which were used to "break" the strike.

As I reported last week, the force-feeding, which involves strapping prisoners into the chairs using 16 separate straps and forcing a tube through their nose and into their stomach twice a day, is clearly a world away from the humane treatment required by the Geneva Conventions, as are the "forced cell extractions" used to take unwilling prisoners to be force-fed.

Now, however, Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley, the military defense attorney for the British resident Binyam Mohamed (whose "extraordinary rendition" and torture set off a Transatlantic scandal last week), has reported that conditions inside the prison have deteriorated still further. In an article in yesterday's Observer, Lt. Col. Bradley, who indicated that her client was "dying in his Guantánamo cell," reported on a visit to the prison last week, and stated,

At least 50 people are on hunger strike, with 20 on the critical list, according to Binyam. The JTF [Joint Task Force] are not commenting because they do not want the public to know what is going on. Binyam has witnessed people being forcibly extracted from their cell. Swat teams in police gear come in and take the person out; if they resist, they are force-fed and then beaten. Binyam has seen this and has not witnessed this before. Guantánamo Bay is in the grip of a mass hunger strike and the numbers are growing; things are worsening.

It is so bad that there are not enough chairs to strap them down and force-feed them for a two- or three-hour period to digest food through a feeding tube. Because there are not enough chairs the guards are having to force-feed them in shifts. After Binyam saw a nearby inmate being beaten it scared him and he decided he was not going to resist. He thought, "I don't want to be beat, injured or killed." Given his health situation, one good blow could be fatal.

Lt. Col. Bradley added that Mohamed's account of the "savage beating" endured by a fellow prisoner was the "first account [she had] personally received of a detainee being physically assaulted at Guantánamo."

And yet, although Lt. Col. Bradley's account indicates that the crisis in Guantánamo is such that ongoing discussions about implementing the Geneva Conventions should be replaced by urgent intervention to address the prisoners' complaints (and alleviating the chronic isolation in which most of the prisoners are held would be a start), the conditions in Guantánamo have been met with a resolute silence from the Pentagon and the White House.

Will it really take another death in Guantánamo -- the sixth -- to provoke an immediate response?