The British resident at the center of a legal battle over alleged torture could leave Guantanamo Bay insane or in a coffin if the case continues to be dragged out, his lawyer said on Monday.
Yvonne Bradley, Binyam Mohamed’s lawyer, said: “It’s amazing he has lasted this long.”
Bradley flew to London yesterday to impress on members of parliament and the UK government the urgency of the case of one of the last British residents detained in what she called the “hell hole” of Guantanamo Bay.
“I do not want to act after the fact, including death. If this keeps getting dragged out, he will leave Guantanamo Bay insane or in a coffin,” Bradley said.
She last saw Mohamed last month just after the authorities started to force-feed him. She knew he had been on hunger strike but she had not been prepared for what she saw.
“His arms were so thin I described them as twigs,” she said.
His weight had dropped to about 55kg.
“He is very poor, mentally, physically and emotionally,” she said.
His cell was smeared with his own feces for three weeks at the end of 2007. She said she had begged the authorities to stop treating Mohamed’s behavior as a disciplinary matter and tried to persuade them there were what she called “mental health aspects” involved.
Mohamed was the subject last week of an unprecedented high court ruling accusing British Foreign Secretary David Miliband of hiding behind claims of a threat to national security to suppress evidence of torture.
Bradley, an experienced US defense department attorney, has seen evidence given to her by the US and passed it to the Foreign Office. The US warned that if the evidence was released, it would stop sharing intelligence with Britain, thus causing damage to the UK’s national security.
Bradley said she had no doubts Mohamed had been tortured. The case “has nothing to do with national security whatsoever,” she said, adding that it was probably to do with embarrassment.
Meanwhile, the lawyers for a young Canadian Guantanamo Bay detainee were set to release a plan today detailing how he should be brought home, a move designed to put pressure on Canada and US President Barack Obama a week before Obama visits Canada.
Omar Khadr, a Toronto native, faces charges that include supporting terrorism and murder for allegedly killing US Army Sergeant 1st Class Christopher Speer of Albuquerque, New Mexico, with a grenade during a 2002 battle in Afghanistan when he was 15.
His lawyers, Dennis Edney and Nathan Whitling, want him repatriated to Canada, especially now that Obama has ordered Guantanamo shut down within a year.
“President Barack Obama’s visit to Ottawa [on] Feb. 19 offers a clear chance for Canada to secure the repatriation of Guantanamo prisoner Omar Khadr, the Canadian child soldier captured and rigorously imprisoned since age 15,” Edney said in a statement.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has not asked for Khadr’s return, but has come under pressure to bring him back to Canada. Khadr is the only westerner left at Guantanamo and one of the youngest people ever charged with war crimes.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was