Ministers 'duped by US' over Guantanamo inmate's torture claim

The Independent

The Government faces accusations that it has been duped by the US military after Foreign Office officials claimed that a UK resident held for four years in Guantanamo Bay without contact with other prisoners was not being kept in solitary confinement.

A letter sent to lawyers representing Binyam Mohamed, the last Guantanamo inmate with the automatic right to British residency, also asserts that there is no evidence to support any of his accusations of torture.

But Mr Mohamed, who is expected to find out this weekend whether he will be tried for terrorism offences or released, claims to have suffered horrific abuse at the hands of his captors, including having his genitals cut with razor blades. He was flown to a Moroccan prison from the US Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan in 2002, and two years later was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, where he has been held in a single occupancy cell without contact with other inmates.

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Lawyers for Mr Mohamed say they are perplexed and angered by the response that the UK concedes is based on American assurances. Similar denials were made about rendition flights to the British overseas territory of Diego Garcia, which later turned out to have taken place.