Four days ago, I posted a diary on the declassification of DC District Court Judge Gladys Kessler ruling for the freedom of Gitmo detainee Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed. In the diary, I quoted from the ruling to show that the evidence Farhi was being held on was produced as a result of the torture of Binyam Mohamed and that Kessler found that the US government did not "challenge or deny" the torture account.
Today, the UK Guardian has this to report:
A US judge has found that there was "credible" evidence that a British resident was tortured while being held on behalf of Washington. A formerly classified legal opinion, handed down by a judge in the US district court and obtained by the Observer, acknowledges that the US government does not dispute "credible" evidence that Binyam Mohamed had been tortured while being held at "its behest".
[...]
Documents have shown MI5 agents asked US counterparts to put questions to Mohamed at the time he alleges he was being tortured. The UK government insists it abhors torture and did everything to facilitate his release. But in the opinion of Judge Gladys Kessler, which was declassified last Wednesday, there is credible evidence Mohamed was tortured while held at the request of the US.
It states: "Binyam Mohamed's trauma lasted two long years. During that time, he was physically and psychologically tortured. His genitals were mutilated. He was deprived of sleep and food. He was summarily transported from one foreign prison to another. Captors held him in stress positions for days at a time. He was forced to listen to piercingly loud music and the screams of other prisoners while locked in a pitch-black cell. All the while, he was forced to inculpate himself and others in plots to imperil Americans. The government does not dispute this evidence."
[...]
The US district court in Washington heard that most of the case against Farhi came from statements made by Mohamed under duress. Kessler noted: "Binyam Mohamed stated that he was forced to make untrue statements about many detainees, including [Mr Farhi]. Binyam Mohamed stated he made these statements because of 'torture or coercion', that he was 'fed a large amount of information' while in detention and that he resorted to making up some stories. The [US] government does not challenge petitioner's evidence of Binyam Mohamed's abuse."
Of course, if you had been following my diaries, you would have known this already.
The Observer piece also quotes Clive Stafford Smith of the human rights group Reprieve as saying that the ruling is "another nail in the coffin of the British government's attempts to cover up" its complicity in Binyam Mohamed's treatement.
Just in case anyone wants to know how I did this: all I did was go to the US District of Columbia District Court Opinions page for 2009 and look for rulings on Guantanamo detainees. I saw the "MOHAMMED et al v. BUSH et al" and it stuck out to me because of the fact that it was partially redacted, very long, and included a section in the table of contents on "torture allegations." It is the best method of looking for the latest primary court documents from habeas cases for Gitmo detainees now allowed because of the SCOTUS Boumediene ruling.