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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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July 29th,
2009 - Clinton Moved to Halt Disclosure of CIA Torture Evidence, Court Told News article from the
Guardian |
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Clinton Moved
to Halt Disclosure of CIA Torture Evidence, Court Told By Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian July 29, 2009 Hillary Clinton, the US
secretary of state, personally intervened to suppress evidence of CIA
collusion in the torture of a British resident, the high court heard today. The dramatic turn emerged as
lawyers for Binyam Mohamed, the UK resident abused in Pakistan, Afghanistan,
Morocco and Guantánamo Bay, joined by lawyers for the Guardian and other
media groups, asked the court to order the disclosure of CIA material. It consists of a
seven-paragraph summary of what the CIA knew, and what it told MI5 and MI6,
about the treatment of Mohamed. Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd
Jones, the judges hearing the case, have said that the summary contains
nothing that could possibly be described as "highly sensitive classified
US intelligence". However, David Miliband, the
foreign secretary, has repeatedly told the court that the US would stop
sharing intelligence with the UK if the CIA material was published. The
judges, as well as lawyers for Mohamed and the media, have challenged that
assertion. "Is it remotely
credible that [the Obama administration] would stop
intelligence-sharing?" Thomas asked yesterday, referring to Obama's
recent decision to publish CIA torture documents in the US. "The
judgment of the foreign secretary is the key," he added. The court has heard how the
Foreign Office and Miliband have solicited US help in keeping the CIA
material secret. Today, it heard how Miliband met Clinton in Washington on 12
May this year. In a written statement
proposing a gagging order, Miliband told the court that she
"indicated" that the disclosure of CIA evidence "would affect
intelligence sharing". Pressed repeatedly by the judges on the claim
yesterday, Karen Steyn, Miliband's counsel, insisted that Clinton was indeed
saying that if the seven-paragraph summary of CIA material was disclosed, the
US would "reassess" its intelligence relationship with the UK, a
move that "would put lives at risk". Guy Vassall-Adams, for the
Guardian and other media groups, told the court earlier that Miliband's
claims - including his account of his conversation with Clinton - "lack
any credibility". He questioned the foreign secretary's claim that
whatever the actual contents of the CIA material it was the principle that
mattered. Miliband has insisted that any intelligence provided to the UK from
a foreign government must always remain secret. "The ultimate decision
as to where the balance of the public interest lies is a matter for the courts
and not for the executive - and any [foreign] country providing intelligence
to the UK which understood otherwise would be labouring under a fundamental misapprehension,"
Vassall-Adams said. Thomas intervened, saying
that the absolute control over intelligence material the UK and US
governments were claiming was not based on any legal principle but was
"the exercise of naked political power". A letter recently sent by
the CIA to the high court "merely demonstrated that the CIA would like
the court to withhold from the public … findings about CIA wrongdoing",
he added. The CIA letter was couched
in vague language and Miliband's interpretation of the US claims was
completely unreasonable, lawyers for Mohamed and the media said. The court was also provided
with a 35-page MI5 document - of which all but three are blacked out -
relating to its instructions to one of its officers in 2002. Nevertheless, the document
shows that the officer, known in the case as Witness B, was sent a list of
detailed questions to ask Mohamed, including about his acquaintances in
London. Mohamed had been arrested in Karachi trying to return to Britain on
an false passport. Officer B, whose conduct is
being investigated by Scotland Yard, questioned Mohamed while he was being
held incommunicado in a Pakistani jail. It is unclear why so many pages in
the MI5 document have been redacted, but the information contained in them
may relate to Mohamed's condition and how he should be interrogated. One
unredacted passage refers to Mohamed as "The Dirty Bomber" a
reference to claims about him which were dropped years later after he was
secretly flown to Guantánamo Bay. The high court judges, who have described
the case as "troublesome", reserved their ruling on whether the CIA
material should be published. External link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/29/binyam-mohamed-cia-torture |