THE HIGH court in London has for the first time refused to accept the British government’s argument that secret intelligence files should be kept confidential on national security grounds.
The ruling, which is to be immediately appealed, was made in the case of Ethiopian-born Binyam Mohamed, who spent four years in Guantánamo Bay and claims that British intelligence agents colluded in his torture while in Morocco. The British government denies the allegations in the Mohamed case, though the attorney general, Baroness Scotland, ordered an investigation in March into allegations that one officer was involved.
Yesterday’s case was held in the Old Bailey, and the publication of the court’s judgment was delayed when MI5 insisted that parts of it had to be edited and removed on security grounds.
The High Court gave its original judgment on the case last year, but a seven-paragraph summary made by the CIA of Mr Mohamed’s treatment was removed on foreign secretary David Miliband’s orders. Lawyers said the paragraphs could prove Mr Mohamed’s case.
During the court’s hearing, lawyers for the foreign secretary argued that releasing the material sought by Mr Mohamed’s lawyers would threaten Britain’s national security by jeopardising future intelligence-sharing with the US.
However, Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones ruled that the risk to national security was “not a serious one”, and there was “overwhelming” public interest in disclosing the material.
Clearly unhappy last night, Mr Miliband said that he personally was “very happy for the information to be published”, but US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has made Washington’s opposition clear. Mr Miliband said: “What I will not accept is for a British court to give away the intelligence secrets of a foreign country, in this case the United States, in the same way that I would be appalled if another country gave away the secrets that we shared with them that affect their national security.”
The US has made it clear “there is an inviolable principle” at issue, and that “there would be serious harm to the relationship between our countries if that principle is violated”, he said last night.
“I am convinced that if we breach the fundamental principle: that other people’s secrets are safe with us, [then] the consequences will be serious and severe, and I cannot take that risk.
“If another country started publishing our secrets, I would start giving them less information. If our country starts publishing other people’s secrets, it is my judgment that that country will share less information with us.”
Mr Mohamed, who once lived in north Kensington, London, returned to the UK in February 2009 after seven years in custody. He claims he was tortured in US custody in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan. He claims that in 2002, in Morocco, he was asked questions supplied by MI5. In July this year, it emerged that an MI5 officer had visited Morocco three times during this period, but the agency insists it did not know Mr Mohamed was there.
However, the officer who travelled to Morocco at that time was the same officer who had questioned the 32-year-old Ethiopian when he was first arrested in Pakistan in 2002, the High Court was told during an earlier hearing.
Human rights lawyer Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty said: “The government should be shamed by this high court finding suggesting that secrecy is being used to prevent political embarrassment about torture rather than to protect national security.”