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UK police to investigate MI5 agent role in US detainee alleged abuse

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] UK Attorney General Janet Scotland said Thursday that police would conduct an investigation into claims that an agent of the country's MI5 intelligence service took part in the allegedly abusive interrogation of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed. Scotland said she determined the investigation was necessary after reviewing allegations that an MI5 agent gave US CIA agents questions that were asked of Mohammed during his alleged torture in Morocco. Mohamed, a native of Ethiopia who claims to have been transferred to Morocco for torture under a US program of extraordinary rendition , said he obtained the documents through the US legal process while seeking his release from Guantanamo Bay. Earlier this month, the UK government's independent reviewer of terror laws called for a judicial inquiry into British complicity in US rendition and torture. British media reported last week that UN special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak told British ministers that MI5 may have been complicit in torture committed while detainees including Mohamed were in US custody. Mohamed was returned to the UK last week following seven years of detention, including five at Guantanamo Bay, where he was held on charges of conspiring to commit terrorism. Those charges were dismissed in October, but Mohamed remained in custody while US authorities considered filing new charges.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on March 26, 2009 (boomark / email).