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William Hague says the alleged torture of Binyam Mohamed will harm efforts to combat terrorism

William Hague Commons David Miliband made a statement in the Commons yesterday following the decision by the Court of Appeal to force publication of part of an original judgment relating to ex-Guantanamo inmate Binyam Mohamed from 2008 - which contains summaries of American intelligence relating to is case held in UK files.

Its publication suggests that MI5 knew about the alleged torture of Mohamed.

Mr Hague told the Commons:

"The alleged treatment of Binyam Mohamed described in the seven paragraphs now released by the Foreign Office is so utterly unacceptable, and the alleged treatment described in the US court judgment in December so dramatically unacceptable, that if true, they are not only morally wrong but will harm our efforts to combat terrorists, play into the hands of their propagandists and weaken, rather than strengthen, our national security.

"We have always believed that the principle of control could be upheld while seeking an exception in this case from the United States. The Foreign Secretary will recall that I put to him in the House a year ago this week that the Government could have positively asked the US for permission to publish these paragraphs. If they had done so, and if the US had agreed, we would have arrived at the same outcome as today's Court judgment, without a further year of legal proceedings, more quickly and smoothly, and in a way that left the Government less open to the attack that they were withholding from the public evidence of complicity in torture. Does not the fact that the relevant information has been published anyway in the US strengthen our case that that would have been the right course of action a year ago?"

> Alex Deane covered the issue in this CentreRight post yesterday.

Jonathan Isaby

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