British police have been asked to investigate claims that MI5 colluded in the torture of former Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed, the countrys top law official said Thursday. Attorney General Baroness Janet Scotland said she hoped the investigation would be carried out "as expeditiously as possible given the seriousness and sensitivity of the issues involved."
Ethiopian-born Mohamed, 30, last month became the first prisoner to be transferred from the US-run Guantanamo Bay detention camp under President Barack Obama. He claims that an agent of MI5, Britains domestic intelligence agency, provided questions which he was asked by interrogators who tortured him at a secret site in Morocco after his arrest in Pakistan in 2002.
The announcement was welcomed by the charity Reprieve, which represents Mohamed. "The attorney general absolutely did the right thing today. It is critical that we get to the bottom of what was done to Binyam Mohamed and the role of any British official in his torture," said Reprieves Zachary Katznelson.
But he added: "For this to be a proper inquiry the police have to be given access to all the information and that includes any secret information. Mohamed disappeared into the contoversial US "special rendition" network on April 10, 2002, when he was arrested at Karachi Airport in Pakistan while seeking to return to Britain with a false passport.
He spent three months in Pakistani custody, during which time he alleges he was tortured and questioned by US and British officials. He was then handed over to US officials and taken to Morocco, where he spent more than a year.
Mohamed alleges that the torture he suffered in Morocco included sexual mutilation, having chemicals poured onto his wounds, and being subjected to mind-altering drugs and sensory deprivation. He alleges that in January 2004, he was transferred to US facilities in Afghanistan, where he spent a further five months before being taken to Guantanamo in May of the same year.
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