Hiding proof that Binyam Mohamed was tortured is not in the public interest

[cal04]

Judges agree to what any sane person could see: information about his treatment cannot be called 'intelligence'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/16/binyam-mohamed-ruling-comment

At long last, two high court judges have told the government what any sane person already knew: issuing yet another judgment in Binyam Mohamed's case, the judges said that no rational person can argue that evidence of torture qualifies as intelligence.

"It cannot be suggested," the judges wrote, "that information as to how officials of the US government admitted treating during his interrogation is information that can in any democratic society governed by the rule of law be characterised as 'secret' or as 'intelligence'."

No indeed. The material at stake relates to Mohamed's "allegation that he had been subjected to torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment…"

I have seen the material, though I cannot reveal it to you. But the judges tell us that these are "reports by officials of the United States Government … amount to admissions by those officials of the way in which … . Given their source and detail, they would … amount to powerful evidence" against the United States and, perhaps, Britain.

(snip)
No doubt the government will fight on to suppress this material, expending large sums of the taxpayer's money in the process. The "public interest," they will insist, means we must hide proof that Americans have tortured people from Britain. Perhaps you disagree?

[snagglepuss]

1. This is a must read. The irrationality of US & UK postition on torture in a nutshell.

"On the news tonight, I watched Miliband argue that a British court cannot reveal the evidence because the American government "owns this material" and has refused permission to release it. Of course, Mohamed owns his body, and did not give the Americans permission to torture him

Americans own the details of their torture of Mohamed in the same way that a criminal "owns" the money that he stole from the bank."


:kick: