London
13 March 2009
In his first broadcast interview after being held for nearly seven
years, British resident Binyam Mohamed has spoken to the BBC. In the
interview, the 30-year-old alleges he was the victim of a string of
human rights abuses during his time of captivity in the CIA-run
rendition network and he wants international justice.
Binyam
Mohamed, an Ethiopian-born British resident was picked up in Pakistan
in 2002 and detained for six years and ten months by U.S. intelligence
authorities.
Over that time, Mohamed says he was transferred
from Pakistan to secret so-called rendition prisons in Morocco and
Afghanistan and then on to the main detention center in Guantanamo Bay.
Last month he was released without charge.
Binyam Mohamed alleges he was a victim of torture and he says British intelligence was involved in parts of his mistreatment.
Interviewed
by the BBC, Mohamed says he wants justice and that
includes trying the man he ultimately holds responsible for his
detention and the detention of others, former U.S. President George W.
Bush.
"He has to be taken to trial for what he has done all
these seven years," said Mohamed. "If there is any evidence that the
prime minister was involved or knew about this, then he should be put
to trial too."
A number of British lawmakers - including the
head of the main opposition Conservative party - are calling for a
judge-led inquiry into the allegations under the time of Tony Blair's
leadership.
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| British Prime Minister Gordon Brown (file photo) |
But the current prime minister, Gordon Brown, is refusing to cooperate.
He
says police can investigate case-by-case allegations of whether British
intelligence agents may have colluded in the torture of terror suspects
overseas.
But Brown looks increasingly isolated over the issue
with many in the country now asking what might have been done in their
name and they want transparency.
Mohamed contends that one
British intelligence officer's role in Pakistan was to support the U.S.
interrogators. This individual, Mohamed says, interviewed him for three
hours.
Once moved on to Morocco, he says British operatives supplied the bulk of the questions he was being asked there.
"Most of the questions which I was asked could not have come from anywhere else but British intelligence," he said.
It was at this time in Morocco that Binyam Mohamed alleges that a razor was used to slash his genitals.
From
there, Mohamed says he was sent to Afghanistan where, he
"nearly lost his mind" in a dark cell with only a blanket on the floor
and with loud music being piped in 24 hours a day.
"The dark prison, I was literally dead. I did not exist. I was not there," he said.
Mohamed tells the BBC that he signed a confession there under the threat that if he did not, he would be returned to his cell.
From there, he was flown to Guantanamo where he spent most of his detention years.
A spokesperson for the British government Thursday reiterated that it unreservedly condemns the use of torture.