A former Guantanamo Bay prisoner has accused British intelligence of feeding questions to the CIA that he says were put to him while he was tortured in Pakistani and Moroccan jails.
The allegations by Binyam Mohamed, a British resident, looked set to fuel demands for a full investigation into whether Britain’s support for the US “war on terror” amounted in his case to complicity with torture.
“When I realized that the British were cooperating with the people torturing me, I felt completely naked,” Mohamed told the Mail on Sunday newspaper in his first interview since being freed from the Guantanamo prison camp on Cuba last month.
A spokesman for Britain’s Foreign Office said: “We abhor torture and never order it or condone it. We take allegations of mistreatment seriously and investigate them when they are made.”
Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, Mohamed disclosed that he his mind remains fragile and he feels “emotionally dead.”
Mohamed, an Ethiopian citizen, said he and his lawyers, in the course of legal action in the US, had seen copies of telegrams from Britain’s MI5 intelligence service to the CIA.
He said an MI5 memo sent while he was held in Pakistan in 2002 offered to provide useful background information that would help interrogators identify inconsistencies in his answers.
“This will place the detainee under more direct pressure and would seem to be the most effective way of obtaining intelligence on Mohammed’s [sic] activities/plans concerning the UK,” the alleged memo said.
Mohamed quoted telegrams he said were sent by MI5 to the CIA while he was held between 2002 and 2004 in Morocco, where he says he endured torture including scalpel cuts to his penis.
One of them, headed “Request for further Detainee questioning,” included a list of written questions about another individual, whether Mohamed knew him, where he met him, where he had gone and what his intentions were.
Mohamed said he remembered clearly the moment when MI5’s questions were first relayed by his Moroccan interrogators.
“They started bringing British files to the interrogations — thick binders, some of them containing sheaves of photos of people who lived in London and places there like mosques,” he said. “It was when they started asking the questions supplied by the British that my situation worsened. They sold me out.”
US authorities at one point accused Mohamed of conspiring to detonate a “dirty bomb” in the US, but eventually freed him from Guantanamo without charge.
The British government defended its decision not to release classified information supplied to it by the US on Mohamed’s case, saying it would jeopardize intelligence cooperation with Washington.
Britain’s attorney-general has said she will see if there is sufficient evidence to order an investigation into the actions of the British government and its intelligence officers.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
RSS