British High Court rejects U.S./British cover-up of torture evidence
Saturday Oct. 17, 2009
(updated below)
There is a vital development -- a new ruling from the British High Court -- in a story about which I've written many times before: the extraordinary joint British/U.S. effort to cover up the brutal torture which Binyam Mohamed suffered at the hands of the CIA while in Pakistan and while he was "rendered" by the U.S. to various countries. While Mohamed, a British resident, was in American custody, the CIA told British intelligence agents exactly what was done to him, and those British agents recorded what they were told in various memos. Last year, the British High Court ruled that Mohamed -- who was then at Guantanamo -- had the right to obtain those documents from the British intelligence service in order to prove that statements he made to the CIA were the by-product of coercion.
The High Court's original ruling in Mohamed's favor contained seven paragraphs which described the torture to which Mohamed was subjected. It has been previously reported that those paragraphs contain descriptions of abuse so brutal that not even our own American media could dispute that it constitutes "torture":
........The 25 lines edited out of the court papers contained details of how Mr Mohamed's genitals were sliced with a scalpel and other torture methods so extreme that waterboarding, the controversial technique of simulated drowning, "is very far down the list of things they did," the official said.
As a result, the British High Court -- pending the results of one final appeal -- will release to the world those seven paragraphs, detailing what the CIA itself told British intelligence agents was done to Binyam Mohamed.
But before the decision was released, the Court decided to redact those seven paragraphs. And in February, 2009, it issued a new ruling explaining its reason to conceal those paragraphs: the Bush administration had issued what the Court called a "threat" that the U.S. would reduce or even eliminate intelligence-sharing with the British if those paragraphs were made public. In other words, British officials needed a reason to tell the High Court that British national security would be jeopardized if those paragraphs were made public, and Bush officials obliged by threatening that the U.S. would withhold information about terrorist plots aimed at British citizens in the future if this information were disclosed. As the High Court summarized in its new ruling issued yesterday (click images to enlarge):
Look - GO read the whole thing ! ..it's important
snips
UPDATE II: The Obama administration, The Most Transparent Ever, condemns the British court decision to reveal what was done to Mohamed:
......Meanwhile, US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said: "We are not pleased", adding that Washington kept such information confidential "to protect our own citizens".
last paragraph
The Obama administration is not only trying to block evidence of what was done to Mohamed from being disclosed in this British court proceeding, but also in America's judicial system, where it has repeatedly asserted the "state secret privilege" to demand dismissal of Mohamed's lawsuit, which seeks to recover damages for his rendition and torture. They're doing that because they're The Most Transparent Administration Ever -- obviously.
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