British Spies Complicit In The Torture Of Binyam Mohamed

by Simon Basketter

British intelligence is involved in torture.

 

Senior officers encouraged it and members of the Labour cabinet attempted to cover it up.

Jonathan Evans, the director general of MI5, last week insisted that the organisation did not carry out torture. “Nor do we collude in torture or encourage others to torture on our behalf,” he wrote.

However, the government has attempted to cover up evidence of abuse in court cases.

There were 42 documents that clearly showed the security services were aware of the torture of Binyam Mohamed, and supplied 70 questions to his interrogators.

A court case last week centred on seven paragraphs in a document that the government fought tooth and nail to keep secret.

Senior judges ruled that the documents should be released.

Binyam Mohamed was arrested in 2002 in Pakistan. He was then taken to Morocco, and from there to Guantanamo Bay.

After his “rendition” to Morocco he was tortured for 18 months. There are at least 29 cases of British collusion in the torture of prisoners. The intelligence services and their friends in the media are fighting a rearguard action to keep the lid on their dirty war. That is why they chose to smear former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Moazzam Begg as a “radical Islamist” last week. Moazzam raised the complicity of British intelligence in his interrogation.

He has campaigned with Cage Prisoners to expose the truth about other victims of torture, in which British agencies were complicit.