Binyam Mohamed, released from Guantanamo three months ago without charge, and the Air Force lawyer assigned to represent him have levelled some fairly horrifying allegations. I haven't seen much about this before in the American press, though there is a little out there. But yesterday morning, it hit CNN in a more prominent fashion (video below). The British police are also investigating the matter.
Mohamed's lawyer, Yvonne Bradley, went from true believer to apostate (she says she was a lifelong Republican and had every confidence in the Guantanamo system) after representing him in the military tribunals system. From the BBC in February:
She maintains that for him to be labelled a terrorist was absurd. … "Guantanamo Bay did not contain the worst of the worst, that was part of the rhetoric. There have been prosecutors over the years who have quit, at least six publicly, there's a lot more that have gone under the radar, disappointed and demoralised."
While Mr Mohamed's own statement did not detail the alleged torture he endured, Lt Col Bradley did not skimp on any of the detail on Monday: "He had a scalpel used on his chest and on his genitals. He was severely beaten. There are also periods of times where he was hung up by his wrists – all Spanish Inquisition technique – and left there for weeks upon end."
I assume what will be called up by torture apologists if this story has staying power is 1) shoot the messenger, and 2) claim Bradley was played. We also might see another old Bushian favorite, claiming that Mohamed wouldn't have been in Guantanamo unless he was a terrorist, the kind of Mad Hatter non-logic that made so many cool heads explode during the Bush era. (Also on evidence in the video below.)
In fact, that last process has already been given a test run by the Weekly Standard here, where they claim, on the basis of what Mohamed admitted (under torture(?), an aspect they don't address), to know he really was a terrorist, though even the military tribunals system, without the weight of standard court procedure, didn't come up with a conviction. Given the nature of that neoconservative publication, I'll wait for the British justice system's conclusions, thanks. It will also bear remembering that his chief prosecutor resigned, citing the unfairness of the system, so number 3 will be shoot that messenger, too.
If the Weekly Standard method fails (though it will give succor to conservatives in need of a way to keep this stuff at bay in their own heads), some really interesting things will have to happen to dismiss this or justify it–in the CNN video, Bradley elaborates to claim that the genital cutting was a repeated thing in the CIA prison in Morocco where Mohamed was held before Guantanamo. There's not enough evidence to call this one either way yet, but it may well turn into a big and ongoing story, since it's a member of the Armed Forces who's come forward, as have several others. I hope his allegations are entirely untrue, but it will be revealing to see how it plays out, no matter the outcome.
