The government was given a further week by the High Court yesterday to consider its position over its refusal to disclose secret documents in the case of a British resident held in Guantanamo Bay.
Cathy Gordon
The government was given a further week by the High Court yesterday to consider its position over its refusal to disclose secret documents in the case of a British resident held in Guantanamo Bay.
Ethiopian national Binyam Mohamed, 30, who came to Britain in 1994 seeking asylum, claims the material supports his case that the evidence against him was obtained through torture.
He was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and has been held at the detention facility in Cuba for the past four years.
He is facing US military trial for terrorism offences and possibly the death penalty if found guilty.
Mr Mohamed, who worked as a janitor in London, alleges the evidence against him is based on confessions extracted by torture and ill-treatment, which is denied by the US authorities.
Lawyers for the Foreign Secretary say that disclosure of the material would cause "significant damage to national security of the United Kingdom".
Solicitor Richard Stein, who is representing Mr Mohamed, said: "The judgment discloses the shocking fact that the Foreign Secretary failed to give any proper weight in secret submissions he made to the court to the abhorrence of torture when he purported to determine that it was in the public interest not to disclose the evidence of ill-treatment to our client.
"The court has given the Foreign Secretary a further chance to reconsider his position before passing judgment. We await his response with interest."
It had been expected yesterday that the judges would rule on whether or not they would make a disclosure order but there will now be further proceedings before a decision is made.
Mr Mohamed was charged in May and faces an imminent decision on the reference of those charges for trial before a US military commission.
In an earlier ruling on August 21, the two judges concluded that the Foreign Secretary was obliged to "disclose in confidence" to Mr Mohamed's Guantanamo Bay legal advisers certain information "which is not only necessary, but essential, for his defence".
Since the August 21 decision the judges have heard further arguments and gave their second judgment in the case yesterday. Lord Justice Thomas said the court had given the Foreign Secretary until Friday September 5 to serve another public interest immunity certificate and the parties would be at liberty to make submissions on that certificate "prior to our reaching our conclusions on public interest immunity and the discretion to order disclosure".
A Foreign Office spokesman said: ""It remains for the court to consider whether any extra benefit to Mr Mohamed from court-ordered UK disclosure outweighs the significant damage that we believe would be caused to intelligence-sharing relationships between the UK and the US."
