Attention, AG Holder!! This article in The Guardian, UK shows us what real Judges upholding the Rule of Law in a real Court of Justice are about to do. Right on, Brit Judges!!
Binyam Mohamed: Judges overrule attempt to suppress torture evidence
High court orders publication of US report, saying British foreign secretary’s actions were harmful to the rule of law
[by] Richard Norton-Taylor
guardian.co.uk, Friday 16 October 2009 17.31 BST
Article historyDavid Miliband, the foreign secretary, acted in a way that was harmful to the rule of law by suppressing evidence about what the government knew of the illegal treatment of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident who was held in a secret prison in Pakistan, the high court has ruled.
In a devastating judgment, two senior judges roundly dismissed the foreign secretary’s claims that disclosing the evidence would harm national security and threaten the UK’s vital intelligence-sharing arrangements with the US.
In what they described as an “unprecedented” and “exceptional” case, to which the Guardian is a party, they ordered the release of a seven-paragraph summary of what the CIA told British officials – and maybe ministers – about Ethiopian-born Mohamed before he was secretly interrogated by an MI5 officer in 2002.
“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,” Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones ruled. “Championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, is the cornerstone of democracy.”
Snip>
“In our view, as a court in the United Kingdom, a vital public interest requires, for reasons of democratic accountability and the rule of law in the United Kingdom, 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 in the United Kingdom.”
Snip>
In the end, Miliband had to rely for help on a CIA letter to MI6 claiming that disclosure of the document would harm the security of the US and UK.
The judges made it clear they did not believe the claim was credible. “The public interest in making the paragraphs public is overwhelming,” they said.
Snip>
Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, admitted in a speech at Bristol University on Thursday that the Security Service had been “slow to detect the emerging pattern of US practice in the period after 9/11″.
“But it is important to recognise that we do not control what other countries do, that operational decisions have to be taken with the knowledge available, even if it is incomplete, and that when the emerging pattern of US policy was detected, necessary improvements were made.”
He repeated the mantra that MI5 “does not torture people, nor do we collude in torture or solicit others to torture people on our behalf”.
Snip>
[All emphasis mine - had difficulty restraining myself.]
Please read the full article at the link above; I just might be a bit biased in my selection of portions to excerpt. (heh,heh)
[Hat tip to BB for her alert to this breaking good news.]
I do not include all Judges in the US Courts in my opening statements, for some have been very courageous and true to the Rule of Law in their rulings regarding suppression of evidence on the basis of national security when there is reason to believe that it is being used as a cover up for embarrassing or criminal conduct. Those Judges deserve our honor and highest praise.



20 Comments







Thanks for this. I will update my Obama scandals list accordingly.
Thanks, Hugh. I feel like getting a soap box and standing on the city square with a bull horn and reading the whole thing over and over. How long would I last before the straight jacket went on?
American judges should maybe take some lessons from the UK.
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“A federal court today ruled that the government can continue suppressing transcripts in which former CIA prisoners now held at Guantánamo Bay describe abuse and torture suffered in CIA custody. The ruling came in an ACLU Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to obtain uncensored transcripts from Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) used to determine if Guantánamo detainees qualify as “enemy combatants.”
While the CIA released heavily-redacted versions of the documents in June, it continues to suppress major portions of the documents, including detainees’ allegations of torture. In August, the government filed a motion arguing that it should be able to continue suppressing the documents because releasing them would reveal “intelligence sources and methods” and might aid enemy “propaganda.” In today’s ruling, Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia declined to review “in camera” the documents the government is withholding in order to determine if they should remain classified. ”
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/41292prs20091016.html?s_src=RSS
Hugh, here in today’s Guardian is a statement about this matter by Clive Stafford-Smith. He quotes some really blunt statements by the judges which were not in the article on which my diary is based. This is very important, it’s not getting much traction, your name carries much more weight than mine, and your skills surpass mine by a country mile – - please read and consider writing a diary on it.
Thanks, Hugh.
Blue, see link at my #4, ref to article in Guardian by Clive Stafford-Smith. Here’s a quote:
[So, I think what those Judges are saying is that psychos brought this on and psychos are now trying to cover it up by twisting the law. hmmm, think maybe Philippe Sands might take tea with these fine Judges now and then??]
Wow! The US just got a huge smack down from those judges. Sands is definitely smiling at their comment.
blue, so nice to be acknowledged...note times of this and that posting. All doubts now erased.
So true. My only surprise is that you still had doubts.
all gone – about a lot of things; so Self asks some questions. I’ll leave them until tomorrow.
blue, surely you’ve noticed that ridiculous ad top right, huh? Is this the dream man of this current age? That impresses the world all right. psst, don’t respond to my # 7.
hee,hee,hee: I just noticed that the head has been cropped from that ad photo…what’s in the head ain’t important, doncha know.
Land of the free and home of the brave; NOT !!!
ubetchaiam, just think of the vast multitude in America who are totally unaware of what is going on – don’t worry, be happy – and all that.
Sure do know how to depress someone; “just think of the vast multitude in America who are totally unaware of what is going on” ; 80 million illiterate and growing.
For most of my life I was one of those zombies, thanks to the propaganda press and TV news. Believe me, I’d make everything o.k. if I could, but have no more power than a feather in the wind.
The UK gets another smack down; from the Iraqis this time.
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“An Iraqi army officer boarded a flight full of deported asylum seekers at Baghdad airport and ordered British immigration officials not to send anyone back by force again, according to a refugee organisation that monitors expulsions.
The confrontation occurred yesterday when the first British deportation flight to Baghdad touched down carrying almost 40 Iraqis.
The officer, reportedly flanked by seven guards bearing Kalashnikovs, asked the refused asylum seekers whether they wanted to return and, according to the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees (IFIR), declared: “Those of you who want to come back, you get off, the rest of you stay where you are.”
Passengers who stayed on the plane, now back in Britain and being held in Brook House immigration detention centre, told the IFIR that “the Iraqi officer told the UK immigration officers to go away and not try to send people back by force again”. ”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/16/unhcr-uk-baghdad-deportations
doesn’t sound like stability has been gained in Iraq, does it? Is this the “stability” McChrystal hopes to gain in Afghanistan? This proves Judge Robert Jackson’s statement about war of aggression embodying the whole of all other war crimes – there’s just no end to it.
A bit of stability because Iraq just acted like a sovereign nation that does not take orders from the UK. Yes, a war of aggression is the ultimate war crime. This was an experiment by the UK and the US because the UK would not have tried this on their own. We’ll see if the puppet government in Iraq stands behind the seven guards.
It was the first flight to Iraq and it failed. Good.
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“It was also reported this week (Independent: ‘Forcing asylum-seekers to return to Iraq is “inhumane”‘) that a charter flight to Baghdad for forty refused asylum seekers would take place in the next seven days, the first deportations to that area since the war began. According to the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees, on 14 October, an Air Italy flight chartered by the Home Office, code-named ‘Operation Rangat’, took off from Stanstead carrying thirty-nine people for Iraq.
Dashty Jamal of the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees commented: ‘The government is forcing people back to a country devastated by a war it started. It is utterly inhumane and immoral. They are trying to keep their crimes secret – even the people they want to remove have not been told where they will be sent back to in Iraq or when. We call on everybody to resist these removals in any way they can.’ ”
http://www.irr.org.uk/2009/october/ha000031.html
Backtracking a lot of subjects this morning, blue. …CIA in Afghan; UAVs early 1980s; (developed radar jamming capabilities…hmmm ‘member those 4 that dropped off the radar?); winter 2000-2001 Cofer Black & “Richard” (Clark or Armitage?) pressed for arming them with Hellfire missiles; 09/07/2000 15 drone flights over Afghan, suspended Oct/2000 due to weather; 12/22/2002 Predator drone armed with AIM-02 Stinger missiles in fight in Iraq’s no-fly zone, Predator shot down, had been sent to “bait” Iraqi fighter planes…I presume all of which were kept from the American public.
I’ve skipped a lot that is important. More later – maybe.