"Contrary to common belief, the American export of terrorism or terrorists is not a recent phenomenon, nor has it been associated only with Islamic radicals or people of Middle Eastern, African or South Asian ethnic origin. This dynamic belies the American belief that our free, open and integrated multicultural society lessens the allure of radicalism and terrorism for US citizens."
Lord Neuberger's excised observations have compelling public interest, court of appeal told
- guardian.co.uk, Saturday 13 February 2010
- Article history
Lawyers representing Binyam Mohamed, the civil rights groups Liberty, Justice, and Index on Censorship, and media organisations including the Guardian, the Times and the BBC, urged the court of appeal today to publish a key passage in its draft ruling that evidence of MI5 complicity in the mistreatment of the British resident must be released.
A paragraph drawn up Lord Neuberger, master of the rolls, was suppressed following the intervention of the government's lawyer, Jonathan Sumption QC.
In a letter sent to Neuberger without the knowledge of defence lawyers, Sumption said the paragraph suggested that MI5 officers "deliberately misled" parliament's intelligence and security committee, shared a "culture of suppression" and "does not in fact operate a culture that respects human rights".
In what Neuberger admits was an "over-hasty" response he excised the offending paragraph without giving lawyers representing other parties in the case the opportunity to respond to Sumption's objections.
The submissions sent to the appeal court today are confidential but human rights and media groups say the evidence reflects the criticisms Sumption complains about.
There is a compelling public interest in the full judgment observations being restored, they have argued, and the government has no right to suppress judicial criticism of MI5 officers.
If ministers were allowed to do so, the reputation of the judiciary would be harmed.
Richard Stein of the law firm Leigh Day, which represents Mohamed, said: "The whole case has been about who writes the judgments – judges or the government.The government seeking to influence a draft judgment is a very worrying development." Reprieve, the legal charity which represented Mohamed in the US courts while he was detained in Guantanamo, said: "If the government really wants to clear up the confusion over MI5's conduct in this case, they must release the policy that was in place at the time. Releasing a new, cleaned-up version will not reassure anyone about these persistent and damaging allegations."
Its executive director, Clare Agar, said: "It is offensive to suggest that by fighting torture through the British legal system, Reprieve and others are giving succour to our enemies."
Media groups, including the Guardian, were today given leave to appeal against a high court ruling obtained by the government, that evidence in a civil suit for compensation brought by British citizens and residents must not be revealed to them or their lawyers.
Richard Norton-Taylor
WASHINGTON (AP) The suicide bomber who killed eight people inside a CIA base in eastern Afghanistan last week was a Jordanian doctor recruited by Jordanian intelligence, a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a foreign government official confirmed Monday.
The bombing killed seven CIA employees_ four officers and three contracted security guards_ and a Jordanian intelligence officer, Ali bin Zaid, according to a second former U.S. intelligence official. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the incident.
The former senior intelligence official and the foreign official said the bomber was Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year old doctor from Zarqa, Jordan. NBC News was the first to first report the bomber's identity and that he was a double-agent.
He was arrested more than a year ago by Jordanian intelligence and was thought to have been persuaded to support U.S. and Jordanian efforts against al-Qaida, according to the NBC report. He was invited to Camp Chapman, a tightly secured CIA forward base in Khost province on the fractious Afghan-Pakistan frontier, because he was offering urgent information to track down Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's right-hand man.
Hajj Yacoub, a self-proclaimed spokesman for the Taliban in Pakistan, identified the bomber on Muslim militant Web sites as Hammam Khalil Mohammed, also known as Abu-Dujana al-Khurasani. There was no independent confirmation of Yacoub's statement.
Al-Balawi was not searched for bombs when he got onto Camp Chapman, according to both former officials and a current intelligence official.
He detonated the explosive shortly after his debriefing began, according to one of the former intelligence officials. In addition to the eight dead, there were at least six wounded, according to the CIA.
The former senior intelligence official said one of the big unanswered questions is why so many people were present for the debriefing – the interview of the source – when the explosive was detonated.
A half-dozen former CIA officers told The Associated Press that in most cases, only one or two agency officers would typically meet with a possible informant along with an interpreter. Such small meetings would normally be used to limit the danger and the possible exposure of the identities of both officers and informants.
An online jihadist magazine in September 2009 posted an interview with al-Balawi, according to SITE Monitoring Service, a terrorist watch group that reads and translates messages on extremist forums.
SITE said Monday that al-Balawi used his pseudonym – identified as Khorsani – in the postings, describing how he rose through the ranks of online jihadist forums. He said he went to Afghanistan to fight, and he exhorted others to do violence.
"No words are more eloquent than those proven by acts, so that if that Muslim survives, he will be one who proves his words with acts. If he dies in the Cause of Allah, he will grant his words glory that will be permanent marks on the path to guide to jihad, with permission from Allah," al-Balawi wrote, according to SITE's translation.
A Jordanian government official, who was not authorized to speak to the press, said the Jordanian government has no connection to the bomber. The official said the Jordanian government had not verified whether the bomber was Jordanian.
The Taliban's Yacoub said the Jordanian intelligence officer, bin Zaid, was helping the CIA recruit agents to spy on al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Bin Zaid allegedly recruited the suicide bomber.
Jordan's state news agency Petra identified bin Zaid as an army officer on a humanitarian mission in Afghanistan. It said he was killed Wednesday evening "as a martyr while performing the sacred duty of the Jordanian forces in Afghanistan." It did not provide other details.
The Jordanian military released a brief statement acknowledging bin Zaid had been killed in Afghanistan, but it did not mention he was working with Jordanian intelligence or cooperating with the CIA.
Bin Zaid's family declined to comment.
Bin Zaid is known to be a relative of Jordan's King Abdullah II. He held the title of sharif, or nobleman, which was bestowed upon him by the Jordanian monarch.
King Abdullah and other members of the royal family received Bin Zaid's body, which was repatriated Saturday in a private ceremony. His wake was held in the Royal Palace.
The death of bin Zaid underscored the close relationship between the Jordanian intelligence service and the CIA in the U.S. global war on terrorism.
Jordan is known to have acted as a proxy jailer for the CIA in 2004, when Jordanian intelligence officers interrogated several al-Qaida militants who were flew in on rendition flights from Guantanamo Bay.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch and several other watchdogs rebuked Jordan for what they described then as systematic torture of the detainees. Jordan denied the link to the CIA and the abuse allegations.
A key U.S. ally in the Mideast, Jordan also contributed valuable intelligence data to the United States, which helped track down the former al-Qaida in Iraq leader, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in 2006. Al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq in June that year.
Tue Dec 22, 10:54 am ET
VILNIUS (Reuters) – The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ran a secret prison in Lithuania where al Qaeda suspects may have been held, a parliamentary probe in the Baltic state found on Tuesday.
The head of Lithuania's domestic intelligence agency has already resigned as speculation about secret jails has intensified.
U.S. broadcaster ABC News reported in August that Lithuania was the third European country, after Poland and Romania, believed to host secret CIA jails
Some CIA staff are reported to have said the use of overseas detention centres was designed to circumvent U.S. law.
Arvydas Anusauskas, the head of parliament's national security and defense committee, said the investigation found Lithuanian intelligence opened two detention centres in cooperation with the CIA.
"There were facilities, there were possibilities, there were (CIA) planes, though we can't know what was on board ... Therefore such a possibility exists," he said, when asked whether any CIA detainees were held in Lithuania.
Top officials were not informed about the jails, and there was no political approval, he said.
Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said it was "a matter of great concern" that such infrastructure existed and that it could be possible to detain suspected terrorists without government control.
In a statement, he said he expected good relations with the United States to continue, but that a strategic partnership could not be an excuse for "Soviet methods, ignoring civilian control of the special services and in breach of existing laws."
ABC News said a secret CIA prison operated near Vilnius airport from early 2004 to late 2005 and that CIA planes flew into Lithuania with top level al Qaeda suspects.
Anusauskas told a news conference that CIA flights entered Lithuania but were not inspected, and it had not been possible to determine who had been on board.
The investigation was the second into the secret jail allegations, demanded by President Dalia Grybauskaite after an earlier probe found no evidence.
"It (the investigation) only proves suspicions she had for some time that there were premises designed for detention and there were flights which could have been used for transporting prisoners," said the president's spokesman, Linas Balsys.
"The president has no doubts that bilateral Lithuania-U.S. relationship cannot be overshadowed by these conclusions."
Last week, Grybauskaite said she had ordered the recall of Lithuania's ambassador to Georgia, Mecys Llaurinkus, who led the state security department from June 1998 until April 2004.
The investigation found that five planes linked to the CIA landed in Lithuania in 2003-2006, and that domestic intelligence officials prevented customs and border guards inspecting them.
The U.S. Embassy in Vilnius declined to comment, saying it was U.S. policy not to comment on intelligence matters.
(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
Foreign secretary claims security would be harmed by disclosing CIA files on UK involvement in abuse of terror suspects abroad
- guardian.co.uk, Sunday 13 December 2009 18.41 GMT
- Article history
Undated handout photo of Binyam Mohamed. Photograph: PA
Efforts will be stepped up tomorrow to suppress evidence of British involvement in the unlawful treatment of a UK resident, Binyam Mohamed, who says he was tortured in Pakistan, Morocco, and Afghanistan before being secretly rendered to Guantánamo Bay.
The foreign secretary, David Miliband, is appealing against six high court judgments ruling that CIA information on Mohamed's treatment, and what MI5 and MI6 knew about it, must be disclosed.
In a case which lawyers on all sides agree is unprecedented, counsel for the Guardian and other media organisations, Mohamed and two civil rights groups, Liberty and Justice, will argue tomorrow that the public interest in disclosing the role played by British and US agencies in unlawful activities far outweighs any claim about potential threats to national security.
Miliband's lawyers will tell Britain's three most senior appeal court judges, led by the lord chief justice, Igor Judge, that if the CIA material is disclosed the US might cut off the supply of intelligence to the UK, thus harming national security.
Since losing in the high court, David Millband has instructed one of the country's most expensive advocates, Jonathan Sumption QC, to represent his position. Sumption, who recently withdrew his application to become a justice of the supreme court after reports of "hostility" from other judges, is reported to earn up to £3m a year and is described by experts as one of the bar's "most formidable" opponents".
Sources say the decision to instruct Sumption comes amid growing concern within the government at the high court rulings, which officials had confidently expected to be in their favour.
In their six judgments, Lord Justice Thomas and Justice Lloyd Jones repeatedly challenged Miliband's claims. It is the first case in which the high court has questioned head-on claims by a government that evidence must be withheld on grounds of national security.
At the heart of the dispute is a seven-paragraph CIA document that the British government insists must remain secret. The two high court judges, who have seen the document, insist it does not contain any sensitive intelligence material. "What is contained in those seven redacted paragraphs gives rise to an arguable case of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment".
The judges stated after hearing arguments put by Miliband's lawyers: "It was in our view difficult to conceive that a democratically elected and accountable government could possibly have any rational objection to placing into the public domain such a summary of what its own officials reported as to how a detainee was treated by them and which made no disclosure of sensitive intelligence matters."
They added: "Indeed we did not consider that a democracy governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress a summary of the evidence contained in reports by its own officials, or officials of another state, where the evidence was relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be".
The two high court judges continued: "The suppression of reports of wrongdoing by officials in circumstances which cannot in any way affect national security is inimical to the rule of law," they ruled.
"A vital public interest requires ... that a summary of the most important evidence relating to the involvement of the British security services in wrongdoing be placed in the public domain ... Championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, is the cornerstone of democracy," they added.
The CIA information includes an account given to British intelligence "whilst [Mohamed] was held in Pakistan ... prior to his interview by an officer of the security service", the judges revealed earlier this year. The officer, known only as Witness B, is being investigated by the Metropolitan police for "possible criminal wrongdoing".
Miliband's claim that Britain's intelligence relationship would be jeopardised "lacks credibility on its face", the judges added.
The Guardian and other newspaper and broadcasting media groups argue that there is no wider public interest to be taken into account in the case than "open justice, the rule of law and democratic accountability".
Miliband was accused in the high court of wanting to suppress information about CIA activities even though details had already been disclosed by the Obama administration. Evidence that Miliband still wanted kept secret related to the question why "it was impossible to believe that President Obama would take action against the United Kingdom", the judges said.
Lawyers acting for the foreign secretary point to a letter sent by the CIA to MI6 in April, saying that if British judges ordered the information at issue to be disclosed the US might reassess its intelligence-sharing relationship with the UK. "The evidence that disclosure would cause serious harm to national security is overwhelming," Miliband's lawyers claim.
They point to a law lords ruling last year that the Serious Fraud Office could not pursue corruption allegations over arms sales by BAE Systems, Britain's biggest weapons maker, to Saudi Arabia because the Saudi government had threatened to stop intelligence-sharing with Britain. The case, in which Sumption also represented the government, has been described by critics as weakening the UK's reputation for observing the rule of law.
Finally I have indisputable documentary evidence that the British government had a positive policy of using intelligence from torture in the War on Terror, and that the policy was personally directed by Jack Straw.
Here are the minutes of the meeting at which I was told this:
All references to the CIA and MI6 have been literally cut out, but the meaning is still perfectly unmistakeable particularly given the heading of the minute.
And here is the absolute smoking gun of Jack Straw's involvement::
Straw has been lying about this for five years. He dismissed my evidence on this to the Parliamenary Joint Committee on Human Rights as "Entirely untrue".
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/10/either_craig_mu.html#comments
Straw ruined my career over my opposition to torture intelligence, after I had been appointed Ambassador by his predecessor, Robin Cook, who was rather more well disposed towards human rights. It is wonderful that it is Robin Cook's Freedom of Information Act which I have used to finally prove beyond any doubt that slippery Straw was up to his neck in approving intelligence from torture.
Minutes available as a JPEG here:
http://www.edavies.nildram.co.uk/2009/11/torture/
From WikiLeaks:
• Italian court convicts Robert Lady and 23 others in absentia
• First prosecution for US abduction of suspects to torture states
- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 4 November 2009 17.42 GMT
- Article history
A mid-1990s passport photo of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, who was abducted by the CIA from Milan. Photograph: Marsela Glina/Chicago Tribune/AP
The former head of the CIA in Milan has been given an eight-year jail sentence for kidnapping at the end of the first trial anywhere in the world involving the agency's "extraordinary rendition" programme.
Robert Lady was tried in his absence and convicted of helping to organise the seizure of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, known as Abu Omar, from a Milan street in February 2003. His superior, Jeff Castelli, the head of the CIA in Italy at the time, was acquitted on the grounds that he was covered by diplomatic immunity. Most of the other 23 alleged CIA operatives on trial were given five-year jail sentences in their absence.
Extraordinary rendition involved the abduction of suspects and their forcible transfer for interrogation to third countries, often states in which torture was routinely employed.
The judge ruled that neither the former head of Italian military intelligence, Nicolo Pollari, nor his deputy could be convicted because the evidence against them was subject to official secrecy restrictions. Two other Italian intelligence officials were given three years' jail.
Successive Italian administrations avoided applying to the US for the extradition of the 26 American defendants, who included a senior US air force officer. Their lawyers, appointed by the court, had no contact with their clients, who were regarded in Italian law as being on the run.
Eyewitnesses testified that Abu Omar was stopped, apparently by Italian police, and bundled into a van. The prosecution charged that he was driven to the US air base at Aviano near Venice, then transferred to another American military facility at Ramstein in Germany. He was allegedly flown from there to Egypt.
Four years later he was released without charge. He said he had been reduced to a "human wreck" by torture in a Cairo jail.
The prosecution alleged the Americans enjoyed co-operation from the Italian authorities. The head of the government when Abu Omar was kidnapped was Silvio Berlusconi, who returned to office as prime minister last year.
More than two years after the trial opened, the judge, Oscar Magi, heard final submissions from the prosecution and defence before retiring to consider his verdict. He told the court: "This was not an easy trial and the mere fact of its having been held is a significant event."
The CIA has declined to comment on the case. Successive Italian governments have denied involvement in renditions.
To build their case, prosecutors ordered police to tap intelligence officers' telephones and seize documents from intelligence service archives. Earlier this year Italy's constitutional court dealt the prosecution a heavy blow when it ruled that much of the evidence gathered was protected by official secrecy and could not be used in court. Magi ruled that the trial should continue regardless.
In a reference to the two senior Italian intelligence officials, prosecutors told the court yesterday that the defendants included those who "by kidnapping Abu Omar compromised, rather than safeguarded, national security".
Italian investigators had been tapping the cleric's calls before he was abducted. Court documents leaked to the media showed he was suspected of recruiting young Muslims for the Iraqi insurgency.
The prosecution contended that his seizure not only violated Italian sovereignty but aborted an important anti-terrorist investigation.
New York Times reports that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the younger brother of Hamid Karzai, is being paid for 'a variety of services'
- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 28 October 2009 13.50 GMT
- Article history
Ahmad Wali Karzai, brother of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. Photograph: AP
Ahmed Wali Karzai, the younger brother of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has been on the CIA's payroll for almost eight years, it was reported today.
The New York Times, quoting unnamed current and former US officials, reported that the CIA was paying the president's brother, long alleged to be a powerful druglord, for "a variety of services".
The report said these included the recruitment of a paramilitary group to do US bidding in and around Kandahar, where he is the head of the provincial council.
The paramilitaries – known as the Kandahar Strike Force – have been accused of conducting rogue operations and score-settling.
They are based in a Kandahar compound that Ahmed Wali Karzai also rents to the CIA and US special forces as an operations base, the report said.
The president's brother was also reported to act as a middle man for contacts between the CIA and Taliban loyalists as part of attempts to persuade them to change sides.
He has long been alleged to be involved in the opium trade in southern Afghanistan, and the CIA's links with him are a cause of deep divisions in Barack Obama's administration, the New York Times said.
Ahmed Wali Karzai denied being involved in drug trafficking, or being paid by the CIA, in an interview with the newspaper.
"I don't know anyone under the name of the CIA," he said. "I have never received any money from any organisation. I help, definitely. I help other Americans wherever I can. This is my duty as an Afghan."
Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, the US senator John Kerry said he had asked US intelligence and law enforcement for solid evidence against Ahmed Wali Karzai but had not been given any.
"I have requested from our intelligence sources and law enforcement folks the smoking gun, the evidence. Show me – what do we know?" he said.
"And I'll tell you right now, folks – nobody has given me the sort of hard and fast 'Here's what we heard them say' or 'Here's what we've caught him doing' or 'Here's what he's involved in.' So this swirls around."
Kerry said there were "things that Ahmed Wali Karzai has done that haven't been helpful. There are things he does that are very helpful for us".
He added: "We need to look hard at the balance of how we can best manage Kandahar and that particular region."
The report of CIA ties with Ahmed Wali Karzai comes at a time when the Obama administration is contemplating increasing US troop numbers in Afghanistan.
It will also revive debate on the CIA's role.
The agency was heavily criticised for its links with rightwing paramilitaries and drug lords in Latin America in the 1970s and 80s.
But after the September 11 attacks, critics argued that it had become too timid and was so constrained by rules and political correctness that it was virtually unable to gather intelligence in troubled parts of the world.
I'd have hardly though that this was a surprise, especially seeing how Hamid Karzai got to be president in the first place...
