Friday, July 31, 2009
During a recent visit to the United Kingdom, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reportedly told London officials that the United States government would cease sharing intelligence information with its longtime ally if a British court released CIA evidence revealing the torture of a former detainee. The case in question involved Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian granted refugee status in Britain, who was detained in Pakistan in 2002 on suspicion of being a terrorist. Mohamed was “rendered” to Morocco and Afghanistan, before winding up at Guantánamo Bay, from which he was released earlier this year and shipped back to the UK.
The Clinton threat followed a similar one made by the Bush administration last summer, when two British judges were considering whether to release written evidence from the CIA that described Mohamed’s treatment at Guantánamo. The issue of whether the High Court should open the documentation to public scrutiny arose again this year after media sources filed an application to gain access to the information.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Hillary Clinton Made Security Help 'Threat' to David Miliband over Binyam Mohamed Case (by John Bingham, Telegraph)
Clinton Moved to Halt Disclosure of CIA Torture Evidence, Court Told (by Richard Norton-Taylor, Guardian)
Surgeon to be Released from Guantánamo after 7 Years (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
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