Thursday, July 30, 2009 LONDON: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said the United States will restrict intelligence-sharing with the U.K. if a British court reveals secret details of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee's treatment, a British government lawyer said Wednesday.Karen Steyn, a lawyer acting on behalf of the British government, told Britain's High Court that Clinton had explained to her counterpart, Foreign Secretary David Miliband, that intelligence sharing between the two countries is at risk if a court makes public so far undisclosed sections of a 2008 ruling on the alleged torture of Binyam Mohamed.Mohamed, an Ethiopian who moved to Britain as a teenager, was arrested in 2002 in Pakistan. He alleges he was tortured there and in Morocco — where he says interrogators sliced his penis with a scalpel — before he was transferred to Afghanistan, and then to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in 2004.He was accused of plotting to explode a "dirty bomb" in the United States, but was freed in February without charge and returned to Britain.Mohamed's lawyers originally launched a legal case demanding full disclosure of what Britain's government knew about his treatment in detention.The court ruled in 2008 that the lawyers could have access to the documents — with some information redacted — but also barred the public dissemination of the information.The judges at Britain's High Court said they had reluctantly accepted the government's claim that publication of the paragraphs could harm U.S.-British intelligence sharing, noting that keeping the details secret amounted to concealing "evidence of serious wrongdoing by the United States."The judges are reconsidering their decision following a lawsuit launched by several media groups.Lawyers acting for the media groups argue that President Barack Obama's administration may be open to Britain publishing the passages, citing Obama's decision to release memos detailing Bush-era interrogation techniques.
Thursday, July 30, 2009 LONDON: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said the United States will restrict intelligence-sharing with the U.K. if a British court reveals secret details of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee's treatment, a British government lawyer said Wednesday.Karen Steyn, a lawyer acting on behalf of the British government, told Britain's High Court that Clinton had explained to her counterpart, Foreign Secretary David Miliband, that intelligence sharing between the two countries is at risk if a court makes public so far undisclosed sections of a 2008 ruling on the alleged torture of Binyam Mohamed.Mohamed, an Ethiopian who moved to Britain as a teenager, was arrested in 2002 in Pakistan. He alleges he was tortured there and in Morocco — where he says interrogators sliced his penis with a scalpel — before he was transferred to Afghanistan, and then to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in 2004.He was accused of plotting to explode a "dirty bomb" in the United States, but was freed in February without charge and returned to Britain.Mohamed's lawyers originally launched a legal case demanding full disclosure of what Britain's government knew about his treatment in detention.The court ruled in 2008 that the lawyers could have access to the documents — with some information redacted — but also barred the public dissemination of the information.The judges at Britain's High Court said they had reluctantly accepted the government's claim that publication of the paragraphs could harm U.S.-British intelligence sharing, noting that keeping the details secret amounted to concealing "evidence of serious wrongdoing by the United States."The judges are reconsidering their decision following a lawsuit launched by several media groups.Lawyers acting for the media groups argue that President Barack Obama's administration may be open to Britain publishing the passages, citing Obama's decision to release memos detailing Bush-era interrogation techniques.
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