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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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March 9th,
2009 - Detainee’s Account Roils U.K. Leaders |
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Detainee’s Account Roils
U.K. Leaders British Complicity In Torture Alleged By Kevin Sullivan Washington Post March 9, 2009 London, March 8 - Opposition
lawmakers on Sunday called for a judicial inquiry into allegations that
British intelligence agents participated in the "extraordinary
rendition" and torture of a British resident who was held in U.S.
custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other locations for nearly seven years. The allegations were made by
Binyam Mohamed, 30, in a newspaper interview published Sunday in which he
told his story publicly for the first time. Mohamed, who was released without
charges last month, said the British government actively cooperated with U.S.
officials in his rendition and torture despite its repeated denials. Mohamed told the Mail on
Sunday newspaper that during 18 months of CIA-controlled captivity in
Morocco, when his captors repeatedly sliced his chest and genitals with a
scalpel, interrogators questioned him about photos and information contained
in British intelligence files they showed to him. Mohamed also supplied the
newspaper with details of two telegrams, which he obtained through a U.S.
lawsuit filed by his lawyers, allegedly sent from British intelligence
officials to the CIA proposing questions that should be asked of Mohamed. Two members of Parliament -
Dominic Grieve, a Conservative Party spokesman on justice issues, and Edward
Davey, spokesman for the Liberal Democrats - called for a judicial inquiry. Mohamed is the first
Guantanamo detainee released during the Obama administration. He was
originally charged with plotting a radioactive "dirty bomb" attack
against the United States. But last year, U.S. officials dropped all charges
against him. His case has become a focus of international anger at U.S.
practices in the "war on terror." U.S. and British officials
have denied using or participating in torture. "We abhor torture and
never order it or condone it," the Foreign Office said in a statement,
noting that the matter has been referred to the attorney general for
investigation. U.S. officials have never
acknowledged taking Mohamed to Morocco; Moroccan officials deny having held
him. In the interview, Mohamed
said that he was born in Ethiopia and that his father was an executive with
the state-owned Ethiopian Airlines. When he was 14, his family was forced to
flee because of political upheaval, and they ended up in a suburb of
Washington. Mohamed did not say exactly
where he lived, but he said he was the victim of racist bullying at school.
"I didn't like the U.S. at all," he said. "It just didn't feel
right for me there, and I wanted to get out." Clive Stafford Smith,
Mohamed's lawyer, said that Mohamed's sister lives in Northern Virginia and
that his brother is a physician in Minnesota. Mohamed told the newspaper
that in 1994 his father brought him to London, where he sought asylum.
Although Mohamed was just 16, he said his father left him there alone and
returned to the United States. Over the next seven years, Mohamed said he
dropped out of school and was a heavy user of marijuana, cocaine and heroin. Mohamed said he traveled
from Britain to Afghanistan in 2001 to learn about the "pure" form
of Islam he had heard was being practiced by the Taliban government. Mohamed
said he was hoping religion could help him kick his drug habit. He said that he was never
particularly religious, but that he was angry about Russia's treatment of
Muslims in Chechnya. He said he spent 45 days in a training camp in Afghanistan,
with the intention of possibly going to Chechnya. "I would never have
taken up arms against British or American soldiers, let alone attacked
civilians," he said. "I wanted to protect civilians, not kill
them." Mohamed said he was in Kabul
when the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks occurred and fled to Pakistan as the
U.S.-led coalition prepared to invade. He was arrested in April 2002 trying
to fly to Britain on a forged passport. Mohamed told the newspaper
that as an asylum-seeker in Britain, he could not apply for a new Ethiopian
passport and had been unable to obtain a British travel document. So he said
he borrowed a genuine British passport from a friend and substituted his own
photo. He said an American who
called himself "Chuck" and who said he worked for the FBI came to
Pakistan to question him. Mohamed said that he asked for a lawyer, and that
"Chuck" told him: "The law's changed. There are no lawyers.
Either you're going to answer me the easy way or I get the information I need
another way." He said his Pakistani
captors chained him and beat him for weeks, and put a gun to his head in a
mock execution. During that time, Mohamed said, he was also interviewed by a
man named "John" from MI5, the British domestic intelligence
agency. Mohamed said he was then
flown to Morocco on July 21, 2002, bound, gagged, blindfolded and forced to
wear a diaper. During interrogations there, Mohamed said, he finally told
them "what they wanted to hear." To stop the torture, he
said, he made false confessions to the dirty-bomb plot, to obtaining a false
passport from 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and to having met Osama bin
Laden 30 times. In January 2004, he was
taken to a CIA prison in Afghanistan. He said that for weeks on end he was
chained in total darkness with a single rap music album, by the U.S. artist
Eminem, blaring 24 hours a day. In Afghanistan, he said, he
was often kept chained in painful positions. "The longest was when they
chained me for eight days on end, in a position that meant I couldn't stand
straight nor sit," he told the newspaper. "That was when I came
close to insanity," he said. "It seems like a miracle that my brain
is still intact." He was then flown to
Guantanamo, where he spent more than four years before being released last
month. Details of Mohamed's
treatment in custody are summarized by U.S. officials in a section of a
British High Court document that the British government has refused to
release. Foreign Minister David
Miliband said that releasing the document could damage Britain's
intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States. © 2009 The Washington Post
Company External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/08/AR2009030801201.html |