Cover-up of terror-suspect torture exposed

Cabinet ministers are facing demands to hold a public inquiry into revelations that the security services knew a terror suspect from Britain had been tortured by the American CIA.

Senior judges ordered the Government to publish previously secret parts of a court document that showed Binyam Mohamed, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, was shackled, threatened and continuously deprived of sleep by his interrogators.

But it emerged yesterday that the judges had cut out even more damning parts of the judgment which said M15 operated in a culture of suppression and disregard for human rights. The cuts were requested by lawyers for David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary.

The judgment was published after Miliband suffered a humiliating rebuff to his attempts to censor the court papers detailing the treatment meted out to Mohamed while he was held by the Americans in Afghanistan.

The Foreign Secretary argued that disclosing the details would undermine the trust between Britain and the United States over sharing of intelligence crucial to the "war on terror".

But the Court of Appeal dismissed his argument. Upholding a previous court ruling, it ordered that the information should be published on the grounds that it had already emerged in a US court. Delivering the ruling, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, said publishing the material would "not do the slightest damage to the public interest".

The previously redacted paragraphs were a summary by British judges of the intelligence received about the treatment of Mohamed, who was referred to in court papers as BM.

They said he had been "intentionally subjected to continuous sleep deprivation" and that the "significant mental stress and suffering" caused by this treatment was "increased by his being shackled in his interviews".

Mohamed, 31, is an Ethiopian who was granted refugee status in Britain in 1994. He was arrested in 2002 in Pakistan on suspicion of being involved with terrorism and questioned by US and British agents. He was "rendered" to Morocco and Afghanistan and sent to Guantanamo Bay two years later.

He was released from the detention camp last year and, on his return to Britain, launched a legal action against the Government, claiming that British officers were complicit in his ill-treatment. Jacqui Smith, when she was Home Secretary, referred the claims to police.

The court papers disclosed yesterday confirmed that he had endured brutal treatment and made it plain that details were passed to MI5.

They said: "We regret to have to conclude that the reports provided to the SyS [security services] made clear to anyone reading them that BM was being subjected to the treatment that we have described and the effect upon him of that intentional treatment."

They added: "It could readily be contended to be at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by the United States authorities."

Miliband conceded defeat after the Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal against an earlier court ruling that summaries of information received by the British security services from US intelligence should be disclosed.

He authorised the publication of the contentious paragraphs on the Foreign Office website.

But it also emerged that ministers launched a successful last-minute attempt to remove some of the most damning comments about MI5 from the paperwork. A letter from Jonathan Sumption, QC, for the Government, called for a paragraph warning that the security services did not have a culture of respecting human rights or of renouncing "coercive interrogation techniques" to be erased.

His letter showed that the judges had originally intended to complain that MI5 had "deliberately misled" the intelligence and security committee, the parliamentary body charged with overseeing its work.

They said the criticism particularly applied to an MI5 officer, known as witness B, who gave evidence in the Mohamed case. The words were taken out after Sumption's complaint.

Miliband told the House of Commons that the Court of Appeal had upheld the principle that intelligence information should be shared between Britain and the US.

But he said the court had ruled that the secret evidence in Mohamed's case could be disclosed as the information had already emerged in the US.

OFFICIAL SECRETS

The paragraphs that were originally concealed:

* It was reported that at some stage during that further [interview] by the United States authorities, BM had been intentionally subjected to continuous sleep deprivation. The effects of the sleep deprivation were carefully observed.
* It was reported that combined with the sleep deprivation, threats and inducements were made to him. His fears of being removed from United States custody and "disappearing" were played upon.
* It was reported that the stress brought about by these deliberate tactics was increased by him being shackled in his interviews.
* It was clear, not only from the reports of the content of the interviews but also from the report that he was being kept under self-harm observation, that the interviews were having a marked effect upon him and causing him [severe] mental stress and suffering.
* We [conclude] that the reports provided to the SyS made clear ... that BM was being subjected to the treatment that we have described and the effect upon him of that intentional treatment.
* The treatment reported, if it had been administered on behalf of the United Kingdom, would clearly have been in breach of the undertakings given by the United Kingdom in 1972. Although it is not necessary for us to categorise the treatment reported, it could readily be contended to be at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by the United States authorities.

- INDEPENDENT