Guantanamo Detainee Blames MI5 For 'Torture'

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed has claimed he would not have faced alleged torture and rendition, if it had not have been for British involvement in his case.

Mr Mohamed, a UK resident, was released last week after spending seven years in captivity. The 30-year-old alleged that MI5 assisted American agents in interrogating him after his arrest in Pakistan in 2002.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4, in his first interview since he was released, Mr Mohamed said he believed it was their involvement which led to him being transferred to Morocco where he claims to have been tortured.

"If it wasn't for the British involvement right at the beginning of the interrogations in Pakistan, and suggestions that were made by MI5 to the Americans of how to get me to respond, I don't think I would have gone to Morocco," he said.

"It was that initial help that MI5 gave to America that led me through the seven years of what I went through."

Mr Mohamed, an Egyptian national, spent six years and ten months in detention, moving from Pakistan to Morocco, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, before being released without charge last week.

He said he had originally travelled to Afghanistan in 2001 after converting to Islam.

"I decided to take a journey to Afghanistan as any 21, 22-year-old would do. Just go and see a part of the world and learn about what's happening over there," he said.

"I was trying to understand Islam and I was told that Afghanistan was where the real Islam was."

The former detainee also told the BBC he had never been involved in any plots and had not attended terrorist training camps before 9/11.

Asked if he had been an al-Qaeda operative, he replied: "I don't even know what that means because how am I supposed to be an al-Qaeda operative?

"How do you become an al-Qaeda operative?"

Mr Mohamed, who is now living in a secret location in England, said he was left feeling "dead" by the experiences.

"Even now I don't feel I am free. I don't have the regular person's feelings that people have. The feelings of happiness and sadness, I still don't have them," he said.

The Attorney General is still considering whether to ask police to investigate allegations of British collusion in Mr Mohamed's mistreatment.

A Home office spokesman said: "The Government unreservedly condemns the use of torture as a matter of fundamental principle and works hard with its international partners to eradicate this abhorrent practice worldwide.

"The security and intelligence agencies do not participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture or inhumane or degrading treatment."

(JM/BMcC)