Word: britishized
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From Prime Ministers to pop stars, terror suspects to teenage tearaways, Scotland Yard has questioned them all. But the request by the British Attorney General that the London police launch an investigation into MI5, the U.K.'s domestic security service, is unprecedented. At issue are claims by Binyam Mohamed, a former Guantánamo detainee, who alleges that British intelligence agents knew he was being held and tortured in prisons in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan, and even supplied questions to his interrogators...
Mohamed's lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, says that to evaluate his client's claims - which could expand the investigation to include similar allegations by fellow Gitmo alumni - police will need access to records and personnel from the British intelligence community as well as from ministries with oversight of the security services and perhaps even to the pinnacles of decision-making in Westminster - and Washington. "It would be very surprising if the decision [on Mohamed] was not taken at a high level. The question is how high," says Stafford Smith, who is also the director of the legal charity Reprieve. During...
...unclear how much cooperation Scotland Yard can expect when it comes knocking on Washington's doors. Mohamed, an Ethiopian-born British resident who was held in Guantánamo from 2004 until this February, failed in U.K. court bids to obtain evidence about the U.S. role in his treatment. The documents were withheld on the basis that disclosure would endanger future intelligence sharing by America and Britain. Campaigners see no discernible shift in this stance since President Obama took power. Stafford Smith says there is "reticence in the Obama administration to turn over all these stones." The CIA declined comment...
...least one U.S. Congressman would support the investigation. Bill Delahunt, Chairman of the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight, says U.S. authorities should cooperate fully in any British investigation. "If there were violations of treaties or domestic law, that has to be revealed. That's my position and it's shared by other members of Congress," says Delahunt, a Democrat. "Obviously given the special relationship [between the U.S. and the U.K.] and given the fact that our security services often times work together, if there is information it ought to be made available to the British authorities...
...unexpected twist, Stafford Smith now faces possible imprisonment himself. The British lawyer has been summoned with his Reprieve colleague Ahmed Ghappour to appear before the Columbia District Court on May 11, to answer a complaint of "unprofessional conduct" lodged by the Pentagon's Privilege Review Team (PRT). If found guilty in what amounts to a contempt charge, Stafford Smith and Ghappour face up to six months in prison...