UK Revelations Challenge Known Torture Narrative [1]
By Jeff Kay | FireDogLake [1]
The fight in a United Kingdom courtroom over secret documents related to the torture of former Guantanamo prisoner and rendition victim Binyam Mohamed has resulted in a striking new revelation, as reported by Mohamed’s attorney Clive Stafford Smith [2] and British journalist Andy Worthington [3]. Newly unredacted material from a previously censored portion of an earlier ruling by a UK court significantly expands the timeline and scope of the introduction of SERE-style “enhanced” interrogation techniques.”
The newly released passage in the court’s previously censored ruling describes how the torture techniques described in the infamous August 1, 2002 “Bybee memo” (PDF [4]) — written to provide a green light for the torture of Abu Zubaydah — were used on Binyam Mohamed by unnamed U.S. agents while Mohamed was held in custody in Pakistan in April and May 2002. This was some four months or so before the authorization “authorization” of these techniques.
Here is the key unredacted passage, from the UK court’s latest filing on the case (PDF [5]), emphasis added:
One of those memoranda dated August 1 2002, from Mr. J.S. Bybee, Assistant Attorney-General, to Mr. John Rizzo, acting General Counsel of the CIA, made clear that the techniques described [as used upon Binyam Mohamed] were those employed against Mr. Zubaydah, alleged to be a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda.”
The court is talking about techniques used by U.S. agents against Binyam Mohamed while he was first held in Pakistan. The unredacted paragraph makes it “clear” that the techniques in the Bybee memo were earlier used upon Mohamed. Read more [1].