By Alex Barker, Jimmy Burns and Daniel Dombey
Published: February 4 2009 22:11 | Last updated: February 4 2009 22:11
A transatlantic row broke out on Wednesday after two judges accused the US of threatening Britain in order to hush-up evidence over the alleged torture of a Guantánamo detainee.
The High Court ruling said David Miliband, the foreign secretary, opposed the release of secret evidence because US officials at the “highest levels” threatened to hold back intelligence, causing “serious damage to national security”.
The threats were made last year by the Bush administration but a Foreign Office lawyer told the court that the “position has not changed” since Barack Obama became president.
Publishing the evidence could be as embarrassing for the UK as it is for Washington because it relates to the alleged complicity of MI5, the Security Service, in the covert abduction and torture of a UK resident.
The disclosure is the first serious test of the “special relationship” in the Obama era. Both the US and UK denied on Wednesday that a “threat” was made. But officials stressed the importance of confidentiality when sharing intelligence.
Details of the ruling provoked an angry response in Westminster. Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat leader, said: “If British ministers were complicit in any way in the use of torture, or helped the US authorities to cover it up, they could face consequences in the International Criminal Court.”
David Davis, a Conservative MP, urged Mr Miliband to “explain what the devil is going on”.
The ruling relates to Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian-born British resident whose release is being discussed by London and Washington. Mr Miliband admitted to the court the undisclosed evidence supported an “arguable case” that Mr Mohamed was subjected to “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”.
The attorney-general was looking at whether there should be an investigation into possible “criminal wrongdoing” by MI5 in relation to the case. But Mr Miliband said making the evidence public would be seen by the US as “gratuitous”, according to the ruling. The judges reluctantly agreed to keep the documents secret because of the “gravity” of the US threat. “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 . . . relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be,” the ruling said.
The US Department of State denied that a threat was made. “We do not threaten allies. The US greatly values our intelligence relationship with the UK,” it said. While declining to comment on Mr Mohamed, it highlighted that Mr Obama had set up a taskforce to review the cases of Guantánamo detainees to meet the administration’s goal of closing the centre within a year.
A department official added that Washington was pleased the court ruling “reinforces the importance of the principle of confidentiality”.
One UK official said: “We don’t treat anything the American said as a threat.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009