Documents warn intelligence sharing 'could be harmed'

Documentation seen by Channel 4 News reveals that America did issue a warning that there would be serious consequences for UK-US intelligence sharing, if material in a torture trial ever became public. Read the letters yourselves.

Watch the report

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, has today denied it again, this time in the House of Commons.

But the exchange of letters between his legal council at the US state department lawyer, "affirms in the clearest terms" the nature of the risk and threat to the Anglo American special relationship.

Tonight is it a cover up of British complicity in torture of a Guantanamo detainee, or is it simply a matter of national security?

The controversy relates to a British court case about the alleged torture of a UK resident held at Guantanamo Bay.

Despite the foreign secretary's assurances, the words of a letter from the legal adviser to the US state department to a foreign office lawyer pulled no punches.

Written in August last year, it said:

"Public disclosure of these documents... is likely to result in serious damage to US national security and could harm existing intelligence information-sharing arrangements between our two governments."

The lawyers for Binyam Mohammed, the Guantanamo detainee whose case has caused the controversy, have gone back to court to ask that it consider again publishing US intelligence material that relates to his alleged torture.

Witness B's statement transcript

Binyam Mohamed is 31 years old, originally from Ethiopia, once resident in the UK - and now into his fifth year of detention at Guantanamo Bay; he is reportedly on hunger strike. He is the last remaining prisoner in Guantanamo with the right of return to Britain.

He was arrested in Pakistan in 2002. There he claims he was tortured by officials acting on behalf of the United States government, where he confessed to be a member of al Qaida.

He claims MI5 knew of his torture.

This document is the full transcript of an MI5 secret agent, identified only as "Witness B", who describes his encounters with Binyan Mohamed while he was being held in Pakistan.

"Witness B" was called to give evidence at the UK high court in July 2008. Mohamed has been fighting a legal battle in the British and American courts for access to 42 documents that could prove his innocence by backing up his claim that he only confessed to terrorist activities after suffering ill treatment.

"Witness B", the intelligence officer had interviewed Binyam Mohammed during his detention in Pakistan in May 2002 and admits the Pakistani authorities were "not held to be particularly high paradigms of human rights" and was asked if he'd made efforts to find out if Mohamed had been mistreated:

Dinah Rose QC:
Witness B, the question I'm asking you is whether you asked, Witness B, anything along the lines of: "Have you been mistreated in detention?" Is the right answer to that no?

Witness B:
I do not recall whether I asked him in exactly those terms.

Dinah Rose QC:
Not in exactly those terms. But in the substance of that question?

Witness B:
I do not recall whether I asked him in the substance of that question.

Dinah Rose QC:
The truth is that you did not, did you?

Witness B:
As I said, I do not recall whether I did or not.

Yesterday the high court said that specific key paragraphs from the documents, thought to be about Mohamed's treatment in detention, would not be revealed because of fears of a threat that America would stop sharing intelligence with the British if they were to be made public.

The British government has been accused of colluding with the Americans over Mohamed's treatment.

Send this article by email

Recipient's email address

Your name

More on this story

Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of external websites.