Inquiry Into Ex-Detainee MI5 Torture Claims

A criminal inquiry is being launched into claims that an MI5 officer was involved in the torture of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee.

British resident Binyam Mohamed, who was released from the US detention centre in Cuba last month, alleged that MI5 assisted American agents in interrogating him after his arrest in Pakistan in 2002.

He alleged that MI5 (whose London HQ is pictured) had prolonged his detention and torture while he was being held in Morocco.

The agent in question has denied he threatened or put pressure on Mr Mohamed.

Baroness Scotland said she had invited the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, to begin an inquiry.

She said: "I have expressed to the commissioner the hope that the investigation can be taken forward as expeditiously as possible given the seriousness and sensitivity of the issues involved.

"The conduct of the investigation will be a matter for the police, with advice from the Crown Prosecution Service."

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith also said the British Government took any allegations of wrongdoing seriously.

"The Government and the security and intelligence agencies will now of course co-operate fully with the police if asked to do so," Mrs Smith said.

"You will understand that until the investigation is completed I cannot comment further or speculate on the outcome."

Mr Mohamed, an Egyptian national, spent six years and ten months in detention, moving from Pakistan to Morocco, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

He alleged he was tortured while in US custody in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan, with the complicity of MI5.

Mr Mohamed also said he was mistreated by local officers who asked him questions supplied by British intelligence, in Morocco in 2002.

(JM/BMcc)