Court backs Guantánamo man on torture

A British resident facing a life sentence at Guantánamo Bay has won a battle in a British court to force the government to hand over documents showing he was tortured into confessing he was a terrorist.

Binyam Mohamed, once a cleaner in Kensington, west London, is accused by the US of being an al-Qaida terrorist intent on the mass murder of civilians.

Yesterday it emerged that the high court had rejected a British government attempt to avoid a court hearing which would decide whether it should reveal evidence showing Mohamed was tortured by the US.

Mohamed, through his lawyers, who have visited him in Guantánamo, alleges he was "rendered" to Morocco, where his torture included his genitals being slashed.

The high court found the UK government supplied America with information to interrogate Mohamed and said the hearing should be held as soon as possible.

Mohamed's lawyer, Clive Stafford-Smith, said: "I have seen not one shred of evidence against him that was not tortured out of him. We know the British talked to Binyam in Pakistan, told him he was to be rendered and gave information to the US that was used in his torture in Morocco."

British resident at Guantánamo faces bombing charge

A UK resident imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay is to be charged by the Pentagon over an alleged al-Qaida dirty bomb plot.

Binyam Ahmed Mohamed, an Ethiopian educated in the UK, is accused of planning to blow up apartment buildings in the US.

The Pentagon's chargesheet for the 30-year-old, who had training as an electrical engineer, states he was selected for "a specialised terrorist mission".

Mohamed allegedly plotted with other operatives in building remote-controlled explosive devices in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The alleged aim was to unleash a radioactive dirty bomb against an unspecified US location.

Yesterday, his lawyers condemned the charges as part of a US "rush to charge as many people as possible at Guantánamo Bay prior to President Bush leaving office".

Mohamed faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted on charges of conspiracy and supporting terrorism.

The director of British legal rights group Reprieve, Clive Stafford Smith, said: "The least the British government can do is insist that no British resident be charged in a kangaroo court on evidence tortured out of him with a razor blade."

Mohamed, one of two British residents still held at Guantánamo was arrested in Pakistan in April 2002 and taken to Morocco by the CIA.

Once there, it is alleged he was beaten and handcuffed during prolonged interrogations as well as being tortured with a scalpel. His mental state has deteriorated as a result, his lawyers say.

Mohamed is said by the Pentagon to have conspired with Jose Padilla, the US citizen and former Chicago gang member who was convicted by a federal court in Florida last year of conspiracy and material support for terrorism. Padilla, 37, was sentenced to 17 years in prison in January.

Mohamed's chargesheet also states that he and Padilla were instructed by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a confessed mastermind of 9/11, to rent apartments in large US cities, fill the corridors and air ducts with natural gas and then blow them up.

In August last year, Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband formally asked the Bush administration to release Mohamed, along with four other UK residents at Guantanamo.

Three of the men were sent home but the US refused to release Mohamed and Saudi-born Shaker Aamer, citing security concerns.

The Guantánamo Bay detention centre, situated on a US base in southern Cuba, currently holds around 270 men.

Prosecutors have indicated they intend to try around 80 of the prisoners in the first US war crimes tribunal since the second world war.

Omar Khadr labelled 'good kid' by U.S. captors

Prison stay could radicalize him, officials told

OTTAWA — The U.S. soldiers holding Omar Khadr believe the detained Canadian is a "good kid" who is not only "salvageable" but actually runs the risk of becoming a radical if he stays in Guantanamo Bay, according to Foreign Affairs reports.

The documents - likely the most significant ever made public in the case - will almost certainly put pressure on Ottawa to finally attempt to bring Mr. Khadr home.

Two reports written by Department of Foreign Affairs officials who visited Mr. Khadr in Guantanamo Bay in March and April of this year describe a "likeable, funny and intelligent young man." Those aren't just the sentiments of the Canadian officials, but also the U.S. soldiers charged with guarding Mr. Khadr, and whose fellow soldier the Canadian is alleged to have killed.

"Omar is 'salvageable,' 'non-radicalized' and 'a good kid' who is well-liked both within the Camp and by [Joint Task Force] staff," a Foreign Affairs official notes in March. "JTF staff seems to look out for him by stopping by to chat on occasion, convincing him to meet with his lawyers and encouraging him to 'keep his nose clean.' "

But perhaps the most significant observation comes a report dated a month later.

"... our U.S. military contact repeated what he had said during the welfare visit conducted in March," a Foreign Affairs official writes. "He said that extended detention in Guantanamo would however run the risk of turning [Mr. Khadr] into a radical."

The reports have not yet been made public, but were obtained by The Globe and Mail. At least one of the reports is expected to be presented to members of a House of Commons subcommittee studying the Khadr case in Ottawa as early as today.

Virtually every prevailing opinion about Mr. Khadr over the years is contradicted by the reports. Canadian officials describe a hopeful young man who is nonetheless aware of how serious his situation is.

"The overarching theme of much of our discussions focused on his desire to get out of Guantanamo, to return to Canada, to fix his health, to educate himself, to have a family and to eventually find a job satisfying his personal commitment to help those in need," a Foreign Affairs official writes. "By contrast, he also expressed a hyper-awareness of the challenges that he would face, but demonstrated no bitterness or anger, emphasizing instead a desire to move forward in life."

In another report, an official says Mr. Khadr tells him he is in Guantanamo Bay because of his family, and wants another chance.

"He wonders however why Canada is so quiet on his case and commented that, while Canada was the best country in the world to live in, it was not as strong as the UK to defend its citizens abroad, although both countries have the same Queen.

"He hopes that Canada will intervene to get him out of Guantanamo [he said he hoped PM Harper will do something]."

Mr. Khadr's relationship with his much-loathed family - widely believed to be one of the reasons the government has refused to try to bring him home - is also described in one of the reports. An official notes that Mr. Khadr barely talks about his family and doesn't seem overly keen to call them.

"The [U.S. official] told me later that one of his last phone calls had initially been cancelled by his mother, because she couldn't make herself available."

Officials also list Mr. Khadr's myriad health problems: He has no vision in his left eye and his right eye is deteriorating because of shrapnel embedded in the eye's membrane. He still has shrapnel in his right shoulder, and it causes the metal detectors at the prison camp to go off.

Mr. Khadr says he doesn't like the 14-day rotation of meals, which he describes as heavy and covered in "red sauce." However, he makes sure to keep within a specific weight range so he isn't force-fed.

Some of the items Mr. Khadr requests from the Canadian officials are surprising. He asks for, among other things, a book on French for beginners, a first-aid book and a stress ball.

The U.S. military's responsiveness to those requests is mixed: Mr. Khadr is allowed an origami book brought for him by a Canadian official, but not the paper accompanying the book.

When a Canadian representative asks why Mr. Khadr did not get a pillow brought for him, a U.S. official notes that "pillows were only handed out as incentives for detainees being interrogated and that since Mr. Khadr had lawyers and was no longer subject to interrogation, he was not eligible for one."

Mr. Khadr, who was 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan in 2002, is due back in a Guantanamo Bay courtroom later this month. He faces multiple charges - including the murder of a U.S. soldier during an Afghan firefight - before a military commission. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

US accused of holding terror suspects on prison ships

The United States is operating "floating prisons" to house those arrested in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who claim there has been an attempt to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of detainees.

Details of ships where detainees have been held and sites allegedly being used in countries across the world have been compiled as the debate over detention without trial intensifies on both sides of the Atlantic. The US government was yesterday urged to list the names and whereabouts of all those detained.

Information about the operation of prison ships has emerged through a number of sources, including statements from the US military, the Council of Europe and related parliamentary bodies, and the testimonies of prisoners.

The analysis, due to be published this year by the human rights organisation Reprieve, also claims there have been more than 200 new cases of rendition since 2006, when President George Bush declared that the practice had stopped.

It is the use of ships to detain prisoners, however, that is raising fresh concern and demands for inquiries in Britain and the US.

According to research carried out by Reprieve, the US may have used as many as 17 ships as "floating prisons" since 2001. Detainees are interrogated aboard the vessels and then rendered to other, often undisclosed, locations, it is claimed.

Ships that are understood to have held prisoners include the USS Bataan and USS Peleliu. A further 15 ships are suspected of having operated around the British territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, which has been used as a military base by the UK and the Americans.

Reprieve will raise particular concerns over the activities of the USS Ashland and the time it spent off Somalia in early 2007 conducting maritime security operations in an effort to capture al-Qaida terrorists.

At this time many people were abducted by Somali, Kenyan and Ethiopian forces in a systematic operation involving regular interrogations by individuals believed to be members of the FBI and CIA. Ultimately more than 100 individuals were "disappeared" to prisons in locations including Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Guantánamo Bay.

Reprieve believes prisoners may have also been held for interrogation on the USS Ashland and other ships in the Gulf of Aden during this time.

The Reprieve study includes the account of a prisoner released from Guantánamo Bay, who described a fellow inmate's story of detention on an amphibious assault ship. "One of my fellow prisoners in Guantánamo was at sea on an American ship with about 50 others before coming to Guantánamo ... he was in the cage next to me. He told me that there were about 50 other people on the ship. They were all closed off in the bottom of the ship. The prisoner commented to me that it was like something you see on TV. The people held on the ship were beaten even more severely than in Guantánamo."

Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve's legal director, said: "They choose ships to try to keep their misconduct as far as possible from the prying eyes of the media and lawyers. We will eventually reunite these ghost prisoners with their legal rights.

"By its own admission, the US government is currently detaining at least 26,000 people without trial in secret prisons, and information suggests up to 80,000 have been 'through the system' since 2001. The US government must show a commitment to rights and basic humanity by immediately revealing who these people are, where they are, and what has been done to them."

Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition, called for the US and UK governments to come clean over the holding of detainees.

"Little by little, the truth is coming out on extraordinary rendition. The rest will come, in time. Better for governments to be candid now, rather than later. Greater transparency will provide increased confidence that President Bush's departure from justice and the rule of law in the aftermath of September 11 is being reversed, and can help to win back the confidence of moderate Muslim communities, whose support is crucial in tackling dangerous extremism."

The Liberal Democrat's foreign affairs spokesman, Edward Davey, said: "If the Bush administration is using British territories to aid and abet illegal state abduction, it would amount to a huge breach of trust with the British government. Ministers must make absolutely clear that they would not support such illegal activity, either directly or indirectly."

A US navy spokesman, Commander Jeffrey Gordon, told the Guardian: "There are no detention facilities on US navy ships." However, he added that it was a matter of public record that some individuals had been put on ships "for a few days" during what he called the initial days of detention. He declined to comment on reports that US naval vessels stationed in or near Diego Garcia had been used as "prison ships".

The Foreign Office referred to David Miliband's statement last February admitting to MPs that, despite previous assurances to the contrary, US rendition flights had twice landed on Diego Garcia. He said he had asked his officials to compile a list of all flights on which rendition had been alleged.

CIA "black sites" are also believed to have operated in Thailand, Afghanistan, Poland and Romania.

In addition, numerous prisoners have been "extraordinarily rendered" to US allies and are alleged to have been tortured in secret prisons in countries such as Syria, Jordan, Morocco and Egypt.