Ministers 'duped by US' over Guantanamo inmate's torture claim
Friday, 25 July 2008
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The Government faces accusations that it has been duped by the US military after Foreign Office officials claimed that a UK resident held for four years in Guantanamo Bay without contact with other prisoners was not being kept in solitary confinement.
A letter sent to lawyers representing Binyam Mohamed, the last Guantanamo inmate with the automatic right to British residency, also asserts that there is no evidence to support any of his accusations of torture.
But Mr Mohamed, who is expected to find out this weekend whether he will be tried for terrorism offences or released, claims to have suffered horrific abuse at the hands of his captors, including having his genitals cut with razor blades. He was flown to a Moroccan prison from the US Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan in 2002, and two years later was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, where he has been held in a single occupancy cell without contact with other inmates.
Foreign Office officials now say they have asked the US to investigate Mr Mohamed's allegations and have concluded: "While at Guantanamo, Mr Mohamed has not been held in solitary confinement, abused or denied medical treatment at any time." The letter adds: "There is no evidence to support counsel's claim that Mr Mohamed's genitalia were brutalised. Nothing abnormal about his genitalia is noted in any of his medical records. The doctors did not identify any scarring... He has never complained to doctors about his genitalia..."
Lawyers for Mr Mohamed say they are perplexed and angered by the response that the UK concedes is based on American assurances. Similar denials were made about rendition flights to the British overseas territory of Diego Garcia, which later turned out to have taken place.
In response, Clive Stafford Smith, director of the human rights group Reprieve and Mr Mohamed's lawyer, has written back seeking clarification.
He asks: "What does the US mean by 'solitary confinement'? As I write this, Mr Mohamed is being held in a single cell, in Camp V, cut off from the other prisoners (he does not meet with them, eat with them, have recreation with them or even pray in the same prayer hall as them), as he has been for most of his four years in Guantanamo. Does that qualify as 'solitary confinement?'"
Mr Stafford Smith also says that he is confident the US has evidence proving that Mr Mohamed has been brutalised.
His letter says: "I can tell you that I know that the photographs of his genitals exist, taken as a consequence of his Moroccan abuse, as a US intelligence officer has recently said as much to a media contact of mine. We have asked Congress to compel the production of such photographs. As detailed in the original discussion of the abuse (and as any person who shaves knows from repeatedly cutting himself), razors are used for a reason by torturers – the scars are often not clearly visible to the naked eye. As we detailed as long ago as May 2005, the US went to great lengths to "treat" the signs of the abuse after Mr Mohamed left Morocco. The US authorities have not conducted the necessary tests, identified by our British medical professionals, to hold a meaningful opinion on this."
Mr Mohamed, who was visited by British officials at Guantanamo yesterday, has been charged with terrorism offences and now faces trial before a US military commission.
