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November 2010 Guantánamo Bay detainees: How the settlement came about"After being released from detention at Guantánamo Bay, former inmates brought civil claims against intelligence agencies and ministers, claiming that they were complicit in their unlawful imprisonment and the abuse they received while in captivity. But their hopes were dashed when the high court allowed MI5 and MI6 to suppress evidence relating to their detention under "closed material procedure", with the agencies claiming that the evidence could jeopardise national security. The former detainees appealed against that decision earlier this year, and were successful. The court of appeal ruled in May that, had MI5 and MI6 succeeded in suppressing the evidence, it would amount to "undermining one of {common law's} most fundamental principles". Government officials told the Guardian at the time that the men were likely to be offered out-of-court settlements, as that would be preferable to embarrassing evidence of the security and intelligence agencies' complicity in abuse being exposed." July 2010 PM moves to ensure courts will no longer be able to disclose evidence about British complicity in tortureDavid Cameron today ordered an unprecedented inquiry into evidence and allegations of British complicity in the torture and abuse of terror suspects. But he immediately moved to ensure the courts would no longer be able to disclose damning evidence which, he implied, (*) could jeopardise intelligence sharing with the US.Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: "An inquiry into British complicity in torture is welcome and overdue but this announcement leaves room for fears that government is bending towards the security establishment. " They wouldn't be in this mess but for all the excuses for secret stitch-ups instead of open justice. This inquiry can only be credible with the broadest remit, the most public proceedings possible and by full engagement with victims, witnesses and lawyers. Any attempt to exempt intelligence from legal scrutiny is an attempt to exempt the security services from the rule of law." * Evidence of torture 'buried by ministers' (February 2009) The government was accused last night of hiding behind claims of a threat to national security to suppress evidence of torture by the CIA on a prisoner still held in Guantánamo Bay.
An unprecedented high court ruling yesterday blamed the US, with British connivance, for keeping the "powerful evidence" secret, sparking criticism from lawyers, campaigners and MPs, who claimed the government had capitulated to American bullying.
Two senior judges said they were powerless to reveal the information about the torture of Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian-born British resident, because David Miliband, the foreign secretary, had warned the court the US was threatening to stop sharing intelligence about terrorism with the UK.
In a scathing judgment, Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones said the evidence, and what MI5 knew about it, must remain secret because according to Miliband, the American threats meant "the public of the United Kingdom would be put at risk
November 2010 UK justice secretary wants intelligence material from MI5 and MI6 suppressed by courtsThe work of Britain's security services will be permanently hidden from court hearings under plans designed to prevent a repeat of the million-pound payouts this week to Guantánamo Bay detainees. A government green paper, which the justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, yesterday told MPs would be published next summer, will contain specific proposals designed to prevent the courts from releasing the kind of information that has emerged from recent Guantánamo cases in the English courts. "It will absolutely eliminate the process happening again," a well-placed Whitehall official claimed last night.
Ministers and officials are planning a system whereby if intelligence material is relevant to a court case, it would be seen and heard in secret hearings and withheld from interested parties and their lawyers.
The settlement has stopped the disclosure to the high court of previously secret documents showing that former ministers, including Tony Blair and Jack Straw, were closely involved in the decision-making process that led to suspects being abducted and "rendered" to Guantánamo.
February 2010
Torture is a crime, not a state secret"There are two important things to remember when analysing Miliband and the White House's arguments concerning the "intelligence" released on the treatment of Ethiopian-born British resident Binyam Mohamed while he was in US custody. First, the seven-paragraph summary details that the interrogation practices endured by Mohamed while in American custody during 2002 constituted "at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment". It reveals nothing besides the fact the US and its proxies resorted to barbarous methods to extract information from captives they believed were al-Qaida terrorists. Second, far more damning information on Mohamed's torture was published last year by a US court. In November 2009, US District Judge Gladys Kessler granted the habeus corpus petition of Gitmo detainee Farhi Saeed Bin Mohammed – another indicator of the cross-Atlantic return of the rule of law. The prisoner had been held indefinitely without charge at Guantánamo Bay since 2002, based partly on Mohamed's confessions to US interrogators. There was one problem, however: US interrogators coerced Mohamed's allegations against Mohammed through torture. "The government does not challenge Petitioner's evidence of Binyam Mohamed's abuse," Kessler wrote in her decision. It's important to note that the "abuse" Mohamed says he endured during his detention included having his genitals slashed by a razor. In short order, the information the British court ordered released yesterday was neither intelligence nor secret. What it did show, however, was what we already knew. The US had systematically tortured detainees it deemed terrorists without due process, and British intelligence was complicit."
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