Today's announcement goes further than any previous official statement in acknowledging the UK's role in Binyam Mohamed's torture



Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed leaving Portcullis House in London / Reuters

The British government admitted today that a terrorist suspect whose case has drawn international attention was interrogated by U.S. officials and tortured during the two years he was held in Morocco.

The findings, resulting from an investigation by England's highest criminal prosecution agency, contradict the obfuscation, stonewalling, and denials by American officials about the case of the suspect, Binyam Mohamed.

At one point, the Obama Administration threatened to cut off intelligence sharing with the UK if a British court ordered the release of classified documents in the case.

Mohamed was picked up in Pakistan in 2002, and U.S. officials alleged that he had undergone training at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and was preparing to detonate a "dirty bomb" in the United States.

After 18 months of interrogation in Pakistan, the CIA secretly transported him to Morocco as part of the Bush Administration's "extraordinary rendition program," according to Mohamed's lawyers, a claim that appears to be corroborated by the flight records of the CIA-chartered planes. He was later taken to Guantanamo.