Court lifts ban on criticism of MI5 in Binyam case

The Court of Appeal has said wording criticising MI5 in a judgement over former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed can be published.

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Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said the "repeat and strenuous attempts to cover up" any "complicity in torture" was "shameful".

Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen said the "whole affair had been bedevilled by attempts to block the truth" and echoed calls for an inquiry into "all aspects of the UK's alleged involvement in human rights abuses like rendition, secret detention and torture".

Earlier this month, the Court of Appeal said that Mr Mohamed should be told what MI5 knew about his ill-treatment at the hands of the CIA in Pakistan in 2002. The judgement revealed MI5 officers were aware that Mr Mohamed had been deprived of sleep, threatened, shackled and left in so low a mental state that he was on suicide watch.

During the judgement it emerged that the government's top lawyer on the case had lobbied the court to remove one paragraph relating to MI5's wider human rights record. Lawyers for Mr Mohamed, the media, and legal pressure groups protested, saying it was an attempt to manipulate three of the most senior judges in the land.

On Friday, in an unusual decision, Lord Neuberger agreed to reveal his original wording - and also his final opinion on MI5's record.


'Final word'


The paragraph explains how MI5 had stressed to Parliamentarians that they "operated in a culture that respected human rights and that coercive techniques were alien to the service's general ethics, methodology and training."

Lord Neuberger's final paragraph goes on: "Yet in this case that does not seem to have been true: as the evidence shows, some Security Services officials appear to have a dubious record relating to actual involvement, and frankness about any such involvement, with the mistreatment of Mr Mohamed when he was held at the behest of US officials."

The judge then says that while the good faith of the foreign secretary was not in doubt, a question mark now hung over some of the legal statements he had made, based on MI5 advice.

"Not only is there some reason for distrusting such a statement given that it is based on Security Services advice and information because of previous, albeit general, assurances in 2005, but also the security services have an interest in the suppression of such information."