Britain's government on Wednesday disclosed once-secret information on the treatment of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who says he was tortured in US custody, losing an extended court battle to keep the material classified.
Judges rejected the government's claim that revealing the information would damage US-British intelligence cooperation.
The information disclosed consisted of a summary of US intelligence information given to British spy agencies about former detainee Binyam Mohamed's treatment during interrogations by the Americans in May 2002.
The paragraphs read in court disclosed that he was subjected to "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" including sleep deprivation, shackling and threats resulting in mental stress and suffering.
Ethiopia-born Mohamed was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and says he was tortured there and in Morocco before being flown to Guantanamo Bay. He was released without charge last year.
The decision upholds an earlier High Court ordering officials to make public the secret seven-paragraph summary of US intelligence files. The Foreign Office appealed that ruling, but promised Wednesday to post the paragraphs on its Web site.
The seven paragraphs summarize a US account of Mohamed's treatment given to British intelligence before he was interviewed by a British MI5 agent in May 2002, the High Court disclosed last year.
Mohamed's lawyers had long claimed the secret paragraphs prove he was mistreated and that the US and British governments were complicit in his abuse. They have been fighting for access to the documents, along with The Associated Press and other news organizations.
The case began in 2008 when Mohamed was facing a military trial at Guantanamo. His lawyers sued the British government for intelligence documents they said could prove that evidence against him had been gathered under torture.
Mohamed, 31, moved to Britain as a teenager. He was arrested as a terrorist suspect in 2002 in Karachi by Pakistani forces and later transferred to Morocco, Afghanistan and in 2004 to Guantanamo Bay.
He says he was tortured in Pakistan, and that interrogators in Morocco beat him, deprived him of sleep and sliced his genitals with a scalpel.
It isn't clear which country the interrogators were from, but Mohamed has alleged the questions put to him could only have come from British intelligence agents.
MI5 has said it did not know Mohamed was being tortured, or held in Morocco.
Mohamed was charged by the US with plotting with al-Qaida to bomb American apartment buildings but the charges were later dropped and in February 2009 he was sent back to Britain.
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