BRITAIN’S NATIONAL security could be put in jeopardy if a document about the alleged torture of a former GuantanamoBay inmate is made public, a court was told recently.
Lawyers acting on Binyam Mohammed’s behalf are seeking the release of the secret document they say will show Britain knew he was being tortured during his six-and-a-half years in US custody before his release in February.
However, lawyers for Foreign Secretary David Miliband told the High Court in London that relations between Britain and the United States would be strained if the document containing an official summary of Mohammed’s allegations were released.
The lawyers also claimed that the US may even consider withholding intelligence from Britain if the document was made public, a scenario that could potentially put British lives as risk.
Counsel Karen Steyn said the Foreign Secretary’s view was that disclosure of the document “could reasonably be expected to cause considerable damage to the national security of the UK.”
Mohammed, 30 a British resident, was arrested in 2002 in Pakistan following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. Intelligence officials claimed he was an al-Qaeda-trained bomber heading back to the UK.
Mohammed alleges that over the following two years he was tortured in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan before being transferred to GuantanmoBay.
In February this year Mohammed was freed and returned to the UK. He is insisting on the release of material which he says show the UK knew he was being mistreated.
Milliband is currently in Washington for talks with US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. He has previously denied that the US threatened the UK over the release of the material but said intelligence sharing between the governments depended on confidence being maintained
