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After losing an appeal, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband today published seven paragraphs formerly redacted from a High Court decision on the treatment of Binyam Mohamed. For the full story of Mohamed (detailing torture that included slicing his genitals with a scalpel after being rendered to foreign interrogators, followed by delivery to US custody), see this extended piece by Andy Worthington.
Included among the material published today for the first time is this paragraph:
The treatment reported, if had been administered on behalf of the United Kingdom, would clearly have been in breach of the undertakings given by the United Kingdom in 1972. Although it is not necessary for us to categorise the treatment reported, it could readily be contended to be at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by the United States authorities]"
This is not a simple case of a politician or other public figure making an accusation against the United States. This is a British High Court rendering a decision after examining evidence. The language chosen is significant. Although "could readily be contended" perhaps could be interpreted as leaving a bit of wiggle room, that possibility is slapped down entirely by "at the very least" before launching into the highly significant "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment". This final phrase, often shortened to CIDT, is important because it is a key element of the UN Convention Against Torture, which actually has the full name "Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment". Finally, this torture has been carried out "by the United States authorities".
Here is a portion of President Ronald Reagan’s statement on submitting the Convention Against Torture to the Senate after he signed it in 1988:
The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention . It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.
Here is Article 12 of the CAT:
Article 12
Each State Party shall ensure that its competent authorities proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction.
Barack Obama and Eric Holder now are required to act. A decision of a British High Court certainly would qualify as "reasonable ground to believe" that CIDT has occurred in the case of Binyam Mohamed and that it was at the hands of "United States authorities".
35 Comments
Excellent. Let’s see if Obama is truly to the left of Saint Ronnie, that infamous liberal. Bets, anyone?
My money is on Obama saying that Holder already has started an appropriate investigation, citing the Durham “broadening” of the videotape destruction. Nothing more will happen and Durham’s report will exonerate everyone.
Great news!
Is the drip, drip, drip the sound of cheney, carnal war criminal, sweating bullets.
Eric Holder ,potential war criminal, better get on the right side of the law before he finds himself in the dock for aiding and abetting Torture/ Murder/ TREASON.
The only way America turns on these war criminals is graphic evidence of the homicides and the human beings damaged beyond rehabilitation to even know their names, these will come out in the upcoming TREASON trials, over much vocal republican outrage.
Good news! We need a video of Ronnie’s statement on torture. It needs to be played over and over and over.
Jim, one drop at a time… Durham or any other toady certainly can’t exonerate what the British High Court has found. if nothing else they will be relegated to O.J. status and wont be able to travel.
The rest of the world is getting a little cockier with us if you haven’t noticed, that’s all good.
And the neocons are closing ranks. Over at NRO, Andy McCarthy asks “Is that all there is?” on the disclosure. What he’s missing is that the genital slicing occurred before Mohamed came back into US control and that the US threatened to “disappear” him, which meant going back to the folks who carved up his penis. I think a threat of that would constitute torture in anyone’s book, especially when combined with the sleep deprivation and stress positions from shackles. They’ll have to do more than McCarthy’s pitiful effort to make this go away.
The decision seems to clear Britain, mainly, and to place blame obliquely on the unnamed foreign agents who allegedly inflicted the bestial cruelty upon Binyam Mohamed.
The role of Britain is still being debated. Apparently there is another paragraph that still is under “discussion” and pertains to the role of MI5. The Guardian has the full story on that front.
Don’t like what is said? Just remove it! Thats progressive? No, it’s oppresive! What a surprise. As much as I hate Rush Limbaugh, he is quite correct.
hello
There is no greater threat to a man than to castrate or cut off your balls and that my friend is “terror”.
Can we have a clean up aisle 9.
For a really good summary of some of that information, see this terrific comment from Jeff Kaye on Bill Egnor’s thread.
Must. Look. Forward. Not. Backward!
Well, Sir Ian Blair was never forced to pay the price of his shoot-to-kill policy in London that led to a complete catastrophe from top to bottom in the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes. The killer who put seven bullets in de Menezes’ head never was called to account.
The Met Chief merely had to resign on his own volition, the Home Secy never showing any inclination to sack the bastard.
Another Blair, Tony, a known war criminal has avoided any legal consequence from his actions.
I’m not expectant the findings will be against Britain, at the end of the day.
Thanks for the cite, tho.
This is hopeful news. Obviously the international community that is more likely to hold the Bush administration accountable. Clearly here in the states the Bush administration were above the law
See skdadl’s terriffic post, too. Here’s a preview:
It doesn’t clear the UK of complicity. There’s still the question of when the UK knew about the US treatment of Mohamed and other UK nationals, what it did in response, such as whether it participated in that questioning or objected to it.
Hey Jim – again, great piece, and thanks for diligently hammering away at this issue. I just had to follow-up with my own commentary. Hope you enjoy.
Original: http://insideoutthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/02/freest-greatest-country-in-world.html
FDL cross-post: http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/29164
Thanks. I have a couple of errands to run and will read when I get back.
Jim, sorry it took me so long to get here. I’m slow to begin with, and then I get all excited over things that suddenly, at long last, seem to be working … Well, you know.
You caught the legal coding about the CAT that I just skimmed over. That was originally written by MI5 guys, yes/no? If I’m misreading and that is the Court of Appeal, same difference. Will that sting in Washington? I know that the date will, and the easy reference to Mitchell-Jessen.
A question: How do we know when the torture in Morocco occurred? Do you get that from Andy Worthington? (I told you: I’m slow.)
Off to update my post with you.
JIm, I seem to recall there’s a (date?) typo? Did BM’s torture occur May 2001 (pre-9/11?) or May 2002?
Is it for sure that Obama and Holder are required to act? Anything in the PATRIOT act to prevent action being taken?
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“The U.S. ratification itself, on 21 October 1994, came some six years after the spring 1988 signature and was subject to numerous (A) reservations, (B) understandings and (C) declarations. These can be read verbatim at the UN treaty website and are parsed here as follows:
A. Reservations: The U.S. made two reservations in connection with its ratification.
(1) The U.S. would only be bound to prevent the “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” that are addressed by article 16 of the Convention to the extent the term “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” was synonymous with the “cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States”.”
(5) The Convention will only be implemented by the United States “to the extent that it exercises legislative and judicial jurisdiction over the matters covered by the Convention.” In other words, the Convention per se is not U.S. law. By itself, it has no legal effect within the U.S. or upon its representatives. Rather, the Convention imposes an obligation on the U.S. to enact and implement such domestic laws as will cause it to come into conformity with the requirements of the Convention. This understanding is echoed in the declaration below.
C. Declarations: The U.S. declared that the provisions of articles 1 through 16 of the Convention are not self-executing.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Us_torture#Ratification
Binyam Mohamed is a British resident, seized in Pakistan in April 2002, who was held in Pakistani custody, supervised by US agents, until July 2002, when he was sent by the CIA to be tortured for 18 months in Morocco, and was tied in with a “dirty bomb plot” that never even existed. After his ordeal in Morocco, he spent four months in the CIA’s “Dark Prison” in Kabul, and was then flown to Guantánamo in September 2004.”
http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/11/26/uk-judges-compare-binyam-mohameds-torture-to-that-of-abu-zubaydah/
Jim,
I left a “thank you!” over at EW’s. Thought I should bring it over here!
Thank you for the post.
Brilliant. Now, tell me again i can con my way into a UK citizenship.
Excellent article, Jim.
Bluebutterfly, you are correct that as many legal obstacles have been laid in the path of holding the torturers accountable (though the main obstacles are political, or a matter of will on the part of progressives), and that includes the language around the “Reservations” to CAT. They were written that way on purpose, and it was only after they were written in (by Reaganite/Bushite attorneys) that the treaty was ultimately ratified. They thought they’d given themselves a get-out-of-jail-free care, and it does muddy the legal waters.
But the question of “shocks the conscience” is a matter for a court to decide. There is more than enough evidence to bring about prosecutions. To fail to do so is not only to violate a treaty obligation and the rule of law (all bad enough), but it violates the norms of human decency and declares the purveyors of such non-actions as persona non grata among anyone who cares about the world they live in and seek to live according to humanitarian ideals.
Thanks, Jeff. Yes, the attempts at exempting the US with the “reservations” were despicable, but I don’t see how, if the treaty were being offered today, Obama would ever sign it. The preemptive uproar from the Republicans and the press would be deafening.
Thanks for fielding that one while I was away! Keep those great links coming.
Yeoman’s work, Jim. You are to be congratulated for the quality of your posts, and (nearly) everyone at FDL must be grateful.
Looking at either of the previous or current administrations through the lens of torture… one begins to see a couple of targets. Truly, Obama has drunk the beltway bubble’s kool-aid if he can continue to ignore the signficance of our wrong-doing.
Heh heh. Thanks for the Kool-Aid link, I needed a laugh.
Does Yoo’s ‘interesting’ definition of torture still stand? If it does, that would muddy the legal waters. Or, could a judge with an understanding of and willingness to uphold the law just choose to say it is an illegal definition and refuse to consider it? Shocks the conscience..would that bypass Yoo’s definition? I have a feeling that America needs another country to bring charges because too much illegal has been deemed to be legal within America.
Happy to oblige. These guys are getting thrown out of Iraq, again. I’m sure they’ll be back soon, though.
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” A total of 250 employees working for the U.S. security firm Blackwater have been dismissed and given seven days to leave Iraq, the Iraqi minister of interior said on Wednesday, according to the semi-official al-Iraqiya TV.”
http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=126792
Thus far, no American court has allowed that question to come to the point of adjudication, when it comes to the U.S. torture program. I find it hard to believe that will be the case forever.
A nice cell at The Hague(ICC) is waiting for the torture-Lady Hillary Rodham Ckinton as a direct consequence of this U.K.-verdict. See Ireland v. U.K at
the European Court of Law which is referenced in the 2010-U.K-Verdict that torture will never go unpunished esprcially by the Clintons(see also Anti-Terrorist Act 1997). Both Clinrons can be detained by rule of law even in the U.S. at any time by my soldiers and brought to justice. We know that several High Courts – for example Beograd(Serbia) – convicted Bill Clinton and concerning military might we are much stronger than the ridiculous U.S.-mercenaries killing for dollars haha … .[Edited by Moderator. No violence directed at anyone is allowed at FDL]… haha
they are hardly the first in line.