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Binyam Mohamed

From Alfawiki
Binyam Ahmed Mohamed
Born (1978-07-24) July 24, 1978 (age 48)
Ethiopia
Other namesBenjamin Mohammed, Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi
OccupationFormer detainee
Known forDetention at Guantanamo Bay without formal charges; allegations of torture and extraordinary rendition; legal actions against UK government

Binyam Ahmed Mohamed (, , born 24 July 1978), also referred to as Benjamin Mohammed or Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi, is an Ethiopian-born individual and UK resident who was held by the United States government at Guantanamo Bay from 2004 until 2009 without formal charges.[1]

Apprehended in Pakistan, he was subjected to extraordinary rendition to Morocco, where he reported undergoing torture during interrogations. Subsequently, he was transferred into U.S. military custody at Guantanamo Bay. During his Combatant Status Review Tribunal, Mohamed explained that his attendance at the Al Farouq training camp was solely to prepare for combat in Chechnya.[2] He also asserted that the evidence presented against him was extracted through torture and later withdrew any confessions made.[3]

All charges against him were eventually dropped, and Mohamed was released, arriving in the United Kingdom on 23 February 2009. He joined other former detainees in pursuing legal action against the UK government over alleged involvement by MI5 and MI6 in his torture by U.S. authorities. In February 2010, the UK Court of Appeal determined that Mohamed had endured "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" at the hands of U.S. officials, with British intelligence agencies complicit.[4] Following this ruling, the UK government agreed to pay an undisclosed settlement in November 2010.

Early life and background

Mohamed was born in Ethiopia and relocated to Canada in 1995 seeking political asylum. He resided there for seven years while applying for Permanent Resident status.

Travel to Asia

In June 2001, Mohamed journeyed to Afghanistan under contested circumstances. While Mohamed and his advocates maintain that his purpose was to overcome drug addiction and visit Muslim countries, British and U.S. authorities claim he admitted to receiving paramilitary training at an al-Qaeda facility. Mohamed stated that this training was intended for participation alongside Muslim fighters in Chechnya, which he argued was not unlawful, and that any admissions he made were coerced under torture while detained in Pakistan.

Arrest and detention

Mohamed was arrested on 10 April 2002 at Pakistan’s Karachi airport as a terrorism suspect while attempting to enter the UK using a forged passport. He alleges that U.S. agents subjected him to extraordinary rendition, resulting in detention at secret locations across Pakistan, Morocco, and Afghanistan. In Morocco, he reported experiencing severe torture, including repeated lacerations inflicted by interrogators.

On 19 September 2004, U.S. military forces transferred him from Bagram airbase in Afghanistan to the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, where he described enduring routine humiliation and mistreatment. By February 2005, he was confined in the stringent "super-maximum" Camp V and faced pressure to provide testimony against fellow detainees.

Mohamed’s UK legal representative, Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve, highlighted Mohamed’s involvement in extended hunger strikes during 2005 as protests against harsh detention conditions and the absence of judicial oversight. These strikes commenced in July 2005 and recommenced in August after detainees believed U.S. commitments to adhere to the Geneva conventions had been violated.

From Mohamed’s statement issued in August 2005:

Charged with conspiracy

On 7 November 2005, Mohamed faced charges of conspiracy brought by a military commission at Guantanamo. The accusation stated that he received training in Kabul to manufacture dirty bombs—devices combining explosives with radioactive substances—and intended to execute terrorist attacks targeting U.S. high-rise residential buildings. His arrest occurred in Pakistan while attempting to enter London using a counterfeit passport.

During his military commission proceedings, Mohamed chose to act as his own legal representative, expressing his objection to the legitimacy of the process and disputing the spelling of his name. He displayed a sign stating "con mission," criticizing the commissions as a "mission to con the world."

In 2006, the United States Supreme Court decided in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that these military commissions lacked constitutional validity, rendering them unlawful and halting Mohamed’s trial.

After Congress authorized new military commissions through the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the United States Department of Defense refiled charges against Mohamed toward the end of 2008.

Nevertheless, on 21 October 2008, Susan J. Crawford, head of the Office of Military Commissions, declared that charges against Mohamed and four other detainees—Jabran al Qahtani, Ghassan al Sharbi, Sufyian Barhoumi, and Noor Uthman Muhammed—were dropped.

As reported by Los Angeles Times journalist Carol J. Williams, all five individuals had connections to Abu Zubaydah, one of three detainees subjected to CIA waterboarding techniques. Their legal representatives anticipated new charges within a month, characterizing the dismissals as procedural following Prosecutor Darrel Vandeveld’s resignation over ethical issues. Attorney Clive Stafford Smith suggested that the dismissals aimed to prevent Vandeveld from testifying that prosecutors had withheld evidence favorable to the defense.

Allegations of abusive detention and UK involvement

In December 2005, declassified legal notes brought Mohamed’s assertions of abusive interrogation into public awareness. He claimed that U.S. authorities transferred him to a secret detention facility known as "the dark prison" in Kabul, where detainees were shackled, kept in total darkness, and exposed to continuous loud Eminem music for a period of 20 days.

Mohamed’s lawyers reported that he experienced "extraordinary rendition", having been moved to Morocco for torture in addition to CIA-operated sites in Afghanistan before being sent to Guantánamo Bay in 2004.

On 21 June 2008, The New York Times disclosed that the UK Government possessed information regarding Mohamed’s allegations of mistreatment. Subsequently, on 28 July, his attorneys petitioned a UK court demanding that the Foreign Office release documents related to his abuse claims and records concerning his unlawful air transit over Ireland. On 21 August, the UK High Court ruled in favor of Mohamed, ordering disclosure of materials deemed "not only necessary but essential for his defence."

Although these documents were provided to Mohamed’s legal team, they were withheld from public release. Later, the High Court upheld the Foreign Secretary’s position to block publication on grounds that it could damage the special intelligence relationship between the UK and United States, which was considered contrary to public interest.

In February 2009, CBC News reported that Mohamed recounted being cautioned by two women identifying themselves as Canadians who urged him to cooperate fully with U.S. interrogators to avoid torture. The report highlighted Canada’s responsibility to object if U.S. officials misrepresented themselves as Canadian citizens in order to extract confessions.

British appeal for release of lawful UK residents

On 7 August 2007, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband formally urged the United States to free Mohamed along with four other detainees at Guantánamo who had previously been granted refugee status or legal residency in the United Kingdom before their capture. This request represented a departure from earlier British efforts that had concentrated exclusively on British nationals.

Civil litigation

On 1 August 2007, Mohamed became a plaintiff in a civil suit initiated by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Alien Tort Statute, targeting Jeppesen Dataplan, a subsidiary of Boeing accused of facilitating CIA extraordinary rendition flights. The lawsuit also named plaintiffs Bisher Al-Rawi, Abou Elkassim Britel, Ahmed Agiza, and Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah.

The Obama administration contended that continuing the case would risk disclosing classified information, which led the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to dismiss the lawsuit on 8 September 2010.

Release

On 7 August 2007, the British government formally requested the release of Binyam Mohamed and four other detainees who were legal residents in the UK but held at Guantánamo. Despite this appeal, Mohamed remained in custody and was officially charged by the U.S. military in June 2008. Later that year, he initiated a hunger strike to protest his ongoing detention. On 16 January 2009, The Independent revealed that Mohamed was preparing for repatriation to Britain, citing a declassified memorandum in which he accused officials of deliberately postponing his release until after the Bush administration ended.

During a 9 February interview with Channel 4 News, Mohamed’s military defense attorney, Lt-Col Yvonne Bradley, confirmed that he had endured torture and accused both the UK and US governments of complicity. Bradley raised these concerns with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on 11 February. According to Agence France Presse, Mohamed ceased his hunger strike on 5 February after being informed about an impending transfer to the UK. A UK delegation visited him between 14 and 15 February, including a medical professional who verified his fitness for travel.

On 23 February 2009, almost seven years following his initial detention, Mohamed was returned to the United Kingdom and released after undergoing questioning.

Claims of MI5 involvement

Two weeks subsequent to Mohamed’s release, the BBC reported allegations that the British domestic intelligence agency MI5 collaborated with his interrogators by supplying targeted questions, which allegedly resulted in false confessions. MI5 communications requested additional interrogations focusing on specific individuals connected to Mohamed. The legal organization Reprieve, representing Mohamed, stated that he had been shown these telegrams by his military counsel Yvonne Bradley. While the British government launched an inquiry into these accusations, Shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve advocated for a formal judicial inquiry and police investigation. Meanwhile, Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, called for criminal probes.

On 12 March 2009, commentator Timothy Garton Ash wrote in The Guardian that allegations of torture and MI5’s alleged collusion should be referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions to prevent perceptions of political suppression. On 10 February 2010, the UK Court of Appeal mandated disclosure of documents held by the Foreign Secretary, revealing MI5’s awareness that Mohamed had been tortured by CIA operatives. The court described such treatment as "cruel, inhuman and degrading," noting it would violate UN conventions if conducted on behalf of the UK.

Mohamed’s legal action accusing MI5 and MI6 of complicity in unlawful CIA treatment advanced in 2009. Despite Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s efforts to withhold evidence citing national security concerns, the government was defeated in High Court rulings. Miliband subsequently appealed six decisions requiring disclosure of CIA-related information and UK intelligence knowledge. Media outlets, Mohamed himself, and civil liberties organizations contended that public interest outweighed security considerations.

On 20 December 2009, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler found credible proof that Mohamed was subjected to torture while detained under US Government authority; this finding went uncontested by American officials. On 27 January 2010, The Guardian reported that UN human rights investigators concluded the UK had been complicit in abusive treatment and possible torture during counterterrorism operations, citing Mohamed’s circumstances specifically. On 10 February, three judges from the Court of Appeal ordered disclosure of MI5 and MI6 involvement, overruling Miliband’s objections.

In response to critical press coverage, Home Secretary Alan Johnson dismissed allegations as "baseless" and denied any governmental interference aimed at shielding MI5 from judicial scrutiny despite earlier drafts criticizing MI5’s conduct as deceptive and suppressive.

The Washington Post noted that court orders mandating publication of confidential US intelligence documents risked damaging intelligence-sharing arrangements between the US and UK. White House officials warned such disclosures could complicate secrecy but emphasized ongoing collaboration due to shared strategic interests.

In November 2010, Mohamed received an undisclosed financial settlement from the British government related to lawsuits over MI5 collusion claims.

Media coverage

  • The story of Binyam Mohamed was highlighted in Extraordinary Rendition, a film produced by AlphaOne Productions.
  • In 2022, the documentary We Are Not Ghouls was launched, focusing on Mohamed's case.

Related topics

Alleged clandestine torture facilities in Morocco where Mohamed was detained:

Additional resources


External resources

  1. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named DoDList2
  2. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named PR notes
  3. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named profile
  4. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named MI5 knew
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