Britain’s role in the secret abduction of terror suspects came under intense new scrutiny with the return to the UK of Binyam Mohamed on Monday after more than four years in Guantanamo Bay.
Senior members of parliament said they intended to pursue ministers and officials over what they knew of his ill-treatment and why Britain helped the CIA interrogate him.
In a statement released shortly after he arrived in a US Gulfstream jet at RAF Northolt in west London, Mohamed said: “For myself, the very worst moment came when I realized in Morocco that the people who were torturing me were receiving questions and materials from British intelligence.”
Once inside the terminal building Mohamed met his sister for the fist time in more than seven years and in the most emotionally charged moment of the day they both cried and hugged.
Mohamed was released after several hours of questioning by police and immigration officials.
Clive Stafford Smith, his lawyer, spoke of a “fantastic day” after the long campaign to free his client, who spent weeks on hunger strike being force-fed at Guantanamo and looked “incredibly skinny and very emaciated.”
Binyam was “extraordinarily grateful to be back in Britain,” said Stafford Smith, who said he had “zero doubt” Britain was complicit in his client’s ill-treatment.
“Britain knew he was being abused and left him,” he said, referring to his secret abduction to Morocco where Mohamed says he was tortured. The lawyer also said his client was subjected to “very serious abuse” in Guantanamo.
Stafford Smith said that while his family was not vindictive, they wanted the truth to be known. Mohamed hoped to be allowed to remain in the UK.
“What we in Britain need to do is to make up for some of the things in the past and if the British government was, as I contend, deeply involved in the torture that Binyam had to go through, the least we can do is offer him his homeland,” Stafford Smith said.
Andrew Dismore, chairman of the Westminster parliament’s joint human rights committee, said he would lead a private meeting yesterday to consider where their inquiry goes next.
Separately, Mike Gapes, chairman of the House of Commons foreign affairs committee, said: “We will be pursuing the issue with ministers,” adding that his cross-party group had been trying to discover the UK’s role in the rendition of terror suspects for years.
His committee intended to question British Home Secretary David Miliband and Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch Brown over what he called “outstanding issues.” He said they included “rendition, what happened to people in Guantanamo Bay and black sites” — a reference to prisons in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
RELEASE: The move follows Washington’s removal of Havana from its list of terrorism sponsors. Most of the inmates were arrested for taking part in anti-government protests Cuba has freed 127 prisoners, including opposition leader Jose Daniel Ferrer, in a landmark deal with departing US President Joe Biden that has led to emotional reunions across the communist island. Ferrer, 54, is the most high-profile of the prisoners that Cuba began freeing on Wednesday after Biden agreed to remove the country from Washington’s list of terrorism sponsors — part of an eleventh-hour bid to cement his legacy before handing power on Monday to US president-elect Donald Trump. “Thank God we have him home,” Nelva Ortega said of her husband, Ferrer, who has been in and out of prison for the
RSS