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High court lifts ban on 'torture' documents

By Channel 4 News

Updated on 16 October 2009

America wants them kept secret, but the high court has ruled that US intelligence documents on the alleged ill-treatment of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed should be made public. Andy Davies reports.

Binyam Mohamed (Credit: Reuters)

Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he was "deeply disappointed" by the judgement, warning the United States might no longer be willing to share intelligence if it might later be disclosed.

Miliband said the British government would be appealing "in the strongest possible terms".

In a statement, he said: "The government is deeply disappointed by the judgment handed down today by the high court which concludes that a summary of US intelligence material should be put into the public domain against their wishes. We will be appealing in the strongest possible terms."


Commenting on today's high court ruling, former shadow home secretary David Davies told Channel 4 News: "I think the first thing to say to Mr Miliband is: 'Stop trying to slow things down, stop trying to cover this up. Let the judges tell the public what's actually happened.'"

"They (the high court judges) spend 64 pages going through Mr Miliband's arguments. And what they find is, there's no evidential basis... It's plain as a pikestaff to the judges there is no threat (that the UK would lose intelligence from the US)."

He went on: "He's (David Miliband) being very disingenuous. What the problem here is that the government are embarrassed by what the judges want to say. The judges want to make plain their view of what's gone on with Binyam Mohamed."

"They (the government) are going to use more taxpayers' money wasted, frankly, on an appeal to slow this down.

"The public shoud ask: what is it that Mr Miliband wants to cover up that the judges think they ought to know?

"The simple truth is that the public has a right to know what's been done in their name - supposedly to protec them from terrorism. In fact, I don't think it did that at all. And that is what Mr Miliband's trying to stop."

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