Court to rule on 'torture' evidence

2:32am Friday 29th August 2008

The High Court is due to announce whether it will order the Government to disclose 'secret' material which an al-Qaeda suspect says supports his case that evidence against him was obtained by torture.

Ethiopian national Binyam Mohamed, 30, who came to Britain in 1994 seeking asylum, was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and has been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba for the past four years.

He is facing a US military trial for terrorism offences and possibly the death penalty if found guilty.

Mohamed, who worked as a janitor in London, alleges the evidence against him is based on confessions extracted by torture and ill-treatment - claims denied by American authorities.

On August 21 he won an important ruling from two judges in London in his legal battle to have intelligence information disclosed to the lawyers representing him in the Guantanamo Bay proceedings.

Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones concluded that the Foreign Secretary was "under a duty" to "disclose in confidence" to Mohamed's legal advisers certain information "which is not only necessary but essential for his defence".

But they did not make an order on August 21 for the material at the centre of the case to be provided because they still had to hear further representations relating to the Government's concerns about damage to national security if there was disclosure.

Since the ruling on August 21 the judges have heard further argument from both sides and will now give their decision on whether or not they will make a disclosure order.

Mohamed was charged in May and faces an imminent decision on the reference of those charges for trial before a US Military Commission.

One of the allegations against Mohamed, who converted to Islam, was that he was chosen by al-Qaeda because of his refugee status in the UK, to train for and participate in terrorist actions.

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