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MI6 and CIA 'sent student to Morocco to be tortured'
An Ethiopian claims that his confession to al-Qaeda bomb plot was
signed after beatings
By David Rose in New York
12/11/05 "The
Observer" -- -- An Ethiopian student who lived in
London claims that he was brutally tortured with the involvement of
British and US intelligence agencies. Binyam Mohammed, 27, says he
spent nearly three years in the CIA's network of 'black sites'. In
Morocco he claims he underwent the strappado torture of being hung
for hours from his wrists, and scalpel cuts to his chest and penis
and that a CIA officer was a regular interrogator.
After his capture in Pakistan, Mohammed says British officials
warned him that he would be sent to a country where torture was
used. Moroccans also asked him detailed questions about his seven
years in London, which his lawyers believe came from British
sources.
Western agencies believed that he was part of a plot to buy uranium
in Asia, bring it to the US and build a 'dirty bomb' in league with
Jose Padilla, a US citizen. Mohammed signed a confession but told
his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, he had never met Padilla, or
anyone in al-Qaeda. Padilla spent almost four years in American
custody, accused of the plot. Last month, after allegations of the
torture used against Mohammed emerged, the claims against Padilla
were dropped. He now faces a civil charge of supporting al-Qaeda
financially.
A senior US intelligence official told The Observer that the CIA is
now in 'deep crisis' following last week's international political
storm over the agency's practice of 'extraordinary rendition' -
transporting suspects to countries where they face torture. 'The
smarter people in the Directorate of Operations [the CIA's
clandestine operational arm] know that one day, if they do this
stuff, they are going to face indictment,' he said. 'They are simply
refusing to participate in these operations, and if they don't have
big mortgage or tuition fees to pay they're thinking about trying to
resign altogether.'
Already 22 CIA officers have been charged in absentia in Italy for
alleged roles in the rendition of a radical cleric, Hassan Mustafa
Osama Nasr, seized - without the knowledge of the Italian government
- on a Milan street in February 2003.
The intense pressure on US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last
week, coupled with Friday's condemnation of the use of evidence
extracted under torture by the House of Lords, has intensified
concerns within the CIA. The official said: 'Renditions and torture
aren't just wrong, they also expose CIA personnel and diplomats
abroad to enormous future risk.'
Mohammed arrived in Britain in 1994. He lived in Wornington Road,
North Kensington, and studied at Paddington Green College. For most
of this time, said his brother, he rarely went to a mosque. However,
in early 2001 he became more religious.
The Observer has obtained fresh details of his case which was first
publicised last summer. He went to Pakistan in June 2001 because, he
says, he had a drug problem and wanted to kick the habit. He was
arrested on 10 April at the airport on his way back to England
because of an alleged passport irregularity. Initially interrogated
by Pakistani and British officials, he told Stafford Smith: 'The
British checked out my story and said they knew I was a nobody. They
said they would tell the Americans.'
He was questioned by the FBI and began to hear accusations of terror
involvement. He says he also met two MI6 officers. One told him he
would be tortured in an Arab country.
The interrogations intensified and he says he was taken to
Islamabad; then, in July 2002, on a CIA flight to Morocco. His
description of the process matches independent reports. Masked
officers wore black. They stripped him, subjected him to a full body
search and shackled him to his seat wearing a nappy.
In Morocco he was told he had plotted with Padilla and had dinner in
Pakistan with Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the planner of 9/11, and other
al-Qaeda chiefs. 'I've never met anyone like these people,' Mohammed
told Stafford Smith. 'How could I? I speak no Arabic... I never
heard Padilla's name until they told me.'
During almost 18 months of regular beatings in Morocco, Mohammed
says he frequently met a blonde woman in her thirties who told him
she was Canadian. The US intelligence officer told The Observer this
was an 'amateurish' CIA cover. 'The only Americans who historically
pretended to be Canadian were backpackers travelling in Europe
during the Vietnam war. Apart from the moral issues, what disturbs
me is that, as an attempt to create plausible deniability, this is
so damn transparent.'
According to Mohammed, he was threatened with electrocution and
rape. On one occasion, he was handcuffed when three men entered his
cell wearing black masks. 'That day I ceased really knowing I was
alive. One stood on each of my shoulders and a third punched me in
the stomach. It seemed to go on for hours. I was meant to stand, but
I was in so much pain I'd fall to my knees. They'd pull me back up
and hit me again. They'd kick me in the thighs as I got up. I could
see the hands that were hitting me... like the hands of someone
who'd worked as a mechanic or chopped with an axe.'
Later he was confronted with details of his London life - such as
the name of his kickboxing teacher - and met a Moroccan calling
himself Marwan, who ordered him to be hung by his wrists. 'They hit
me in the chest, the stomach, and they knocked my feet from under
me. I have a shoulder pain to this day from the wrenching as my arms
were almost pulled out of their sockets.'
Another time, he told Stafford Smith: 'They took a scalpel to my
right chest. It was only a small cut. Then they cut my left chest.
One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. He did
it once, and they stood still for maybe a minute watching. I was in
agony, crying, trying desperately to suppress myself, but I was
screaming... They must have done this 20 to 30 times in maybe two
hours. There was blood all over.'
In September he was taken to Guantanamo Bay where he has been
charged with involvement in al-Qaeda plots and faces trial there by
military commission. Stafford Smith said: 'I am unaware of any
evidence against him other than that extracted under torture.'
The Foreign Office, the Moroccan Embassy and the CIA refused to
comment yesterday.
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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