Binyam Mohamed has launched an urgent legal action to prevent the US from destroying evidence which he states proves that he was abused while in US custody.
The evidence, which is believed to include a photograph taken of Mr Mohamed after he had been savagely beaten by guards at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba, is due to be destroyed within 30 days of his case being dismissed in the US courts – a decision which is due to be taken imminently.
Mr Mohamed was detained in Pakistan, Morroco, Afghanistan and then Guantanamo Bay for almost seven years until his release without charge in February 2009. During his detention he was subjected to horrific abuse and torture.
Over the last year, Leigh Day & Co have been representing Mr Mohamed in a number of legal challenges against the British government, arising from its involvement in his unlawful treatment.
On Friday 10th July 2009, the Security Services, Foreign & Commonwealth Office (“FCO”), Home Office and the Attorney General are due to serve a Defence in his civil claim for damages against them for their alleged liability for his ill-treatment and torture during his detention. The Government has indicated that it is likely to seek to rely in part on a “closed defence,” which will not be made available to Mr Mohamed or his current legal team, an unprecedented step in civil proceedings such as these.
In separate proceedings before the High Court, Leigh Day & Co is acting on Mr Mohamed’s behalf in seeking full disclosure of exactly what the British knew about his torture and ill-treatment in Pakistan. This information, contained in secret telegrams from the US to the British security services, has been seen by UK judges and was summarised in their judgment of 21 August 2008, which ruled that the UK was mixed up in Mr Mohamed’s ill treatment and torture. At the request of the Security Services, those details were then removed from the judgment.
The UK continues to resist the restoration of those paragraphs even after the change of administration in the White House. The Bush administration had threatened to withhold intelligence sharing with the UK should they be made public. Judges were critical of the Government’s stance at the time and it subsequently emerged that the new US administration under Barack Obama had not made any such threat at the time the assertion by the FCO was made.
Sapna Malik, partner at Leigh Day & Co representing Mr Mohamed in his damages claim comments, “We are extremely concerned that the potential destruction of key evidence of Mr Mohamed’s abuse held in the US is yet another attempt to suppress the true circumstances of his detention and prevent him for fully clearing his name.“
For further information regarding these matters, please contact
Sapna Malik on 020 7650 1222 or
Jamie Beagent on 020 7650 1200.
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