Guardian report.

The government will attempt today to have a case about torture heard entirely behind closed doors in a move that some lawyers say would extend secrecy to a new area of hearings, overriding ancient principles of English law.

[...]

"This would set a very serious precedent," said Louise Christian, a partner at Christian Khan who represents Martin Mubanga, one of the claimants, who was also detained at Guantánamo Bay. "If you allow evidence in ordinary civil cases to be kept secret, there is no doubt it will be endlessly used by the government. As the Binyam Mohamed case illustrated, this is really about the government avoiding embarrassment for the reality of their collaboration with the US and all that happened, rather than any real national security issues."

Clive Stafford Smith in the Guardian.

After rubbing the government's nose in its torture cover-up in the case of Binyam Mohamed, we gave the government a chance to come clean this week in the case of Mohammed Saad Iqbal Madni, a man I met last week in Lahore, Pakistan. Madni was rendered through Diego Garcia to 92 days of particularly gruesome torture in Egypt, followed by time in Bagram and Guantánamo, before being belatedly cleared of any crime and sent home.

The British, sad to say, were again mixed up in all this. We suggested last August that they simply admit it.

[...]

A hearing was set for the case on 4 March 2010. At 5:21pm on 3 March, after the close of business, the government changed its tune. The government now admitted to the court that it was in "possession of documents which have a bearing … on whether any British or American authorities were mixed up in wrongdoing …"

Independent report.

He was supposed to return to Britain in 2007 -- but Shaker Aamer is still being held inside Camp Delta. Who is this charismatic prisoner? And what happened to him at the hands of MI5? Robert Verkaik reports

Larisa Alexandrovna on at-Largely.

The reason Liz Cheney is so interested in demonizing lawyers who represented or advocated for detainees at Gitmo is because her father has admitted to committing war crimes, over and over and over. Using the same old handbook, Liz Cheney is defending daddy by demonizing anyone in a position to shed light on the war crimes committed on her father's orders.

Channel 4 report.

The "special relationship" is showing strain as a meeting set to celebrate UK and US intelligence sharing is called off in the wake of the decision to publish information about Binyam Mohamed.

A meeting to celebrate 60 years of UK/US defence intelligence sharing was called off last week, Channel 4 News has learned, in the wake of the controversial Court of Appeal ruling in the Binyam Mohamed case.

Andy Worthington writes.

On Friday, it emerged in a UK court that the Metropolitan Police is investigating allegations that MI5 was complicit in the torture, in US custody in Afghanistan, of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident still held at Guantánamo. In the High Court, Richard Hermer QC, counsel for Aamer, told Mr. Justice Sullivan that Met officers had visited his solicitors, Birnberg Peirce, on Wednesday. "It became apparent they are now investigating allegations raised by Mr. Aamer into the alleged complicity of the UK security service in his mistreatment," he said, adding that the police had made an application to the court "for release of relevant documents" relating to Aamer's allegations that the confessions he made in US custody were obtained through torture.

Guardian report.

The Polish authorities have for the first time admitted their involvement in the CIA's secret programme for the rendition of high-level terrorist suspects from Iraq and Afghanistan, it emerged today.

After years of stonewalling, Warsaw's air control service confirmed that at least six CIA flights had landed at a disused military air base in northern Poland in 2003.

Times report.

For the past 10 weeks a senior lawyer in the office of Baroness Scotland, the attorney-general, has been studying the cases of five British men alleged to have been unlawfully detained and tortured in Pakistan with the complicity of MI5.

Scotland may rule there is insufficient evidence to call in detectives but if she does refer the cases to the police, it could in effect paralyse the agency that Evans has led since 2007.

Guardian report.

The Metropolitan police is investigating allegations that MI5 was complicit in the torture of Shaker Aamer, the last remaining British resident in Guantánamo Bay, it was revealed today.

Investigating officers have applied to the high court for the release of classified government documents relating to the case. They are already investigating claims of MI5 complicity in the ill-treatment of British resident Binyam Mohamed while being held by the US.

Craig Murray comments on Bruce Anderson's nasty piece that was in the Independent on Monday.

Saloon bar bigot Bruce Anderson came out with a fierce defence of the government's use of torture. It could have been written by Torquemada, Walsingham or Franco. To get that vital information about the ticking bomb, it would be morally imperative to torture the terrorist's wife and children, he concluded.

Interesting is it not that to opine that Palestinian suicide bombers are justified is illegal, but to advocate torture of innocent women and children is patriotic?

Conor Gearty on the London Review of Books blog.

What a change we have seen! Binyam Mohamed's case was before the three most senior judges in the land outside the Supreme Court. None of the three is anything other than mainstream: their views can be taken reliably to reflect the atmosphere that prevails in the rarefied judicial world in which they spend their professional lives. Their decision upholds the principle of open justice as against the interests of the intelligence service and requires that the full basis for Binyam Mohamed's victory in the lower court is made clear to him.

Clive Stafford Smith in the Times.

Listeners to the Today programme yesterday would have heard Kim Howells, the Labour MP, demanding to know what a senior judge was "playing at". Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, the Master of the Rolls, had made some harsh assertions against the security services in his original judgment on the Binyam Mohamed torture case, for which Dr Howells, chairman of the "completely independent" Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), claimed that there was no evidence.

I was astounded at Dr Howells's gall. The British public isn't permitted to see the classified evidence about Mr Mohamed's abuse. As his lawyer, I am -- albeit in the US -- and this places me in a fairly good position to call Dr Howell's bluff. I cannot reveal anything not in the public domain but I can suggest, sad to say, that Dr Howells has been less than forthright; either that, or evidence has been hidden from him and his committee.

Charles Moore in the Telegraph echoes the pro-torture sentiments of his colleague Con Coughlin, but with slightly more subtle language.

Also from the Telegraph, this article: MI5 officers diverted from counter-terrorism to fight 'torture' court cases.

Binyam Mohamed was released from Guantanamo Bay last year at the insistence of the British Government. It persuaded the American government to drop terrorist charges against him. Now our Government has been repaid for its efforts on his behalf by a legal judgment that undermines this country's ability to get information on our deadly enemies. Few of us want anyone tortured, and most of us want a system of justice that is independent of government. But we do not want a country that cannot protect itself from attack, or judges who take political decisions upon themselves. Yet this is what we are getting.

Moazzam Begg in the Guardian.

When I heard about Binyam Mohamed I felt a certain sense of relief that finally some of the truth was coming out into the public arena. But it's not a revelation to me as it's something I have maintained since my release: that the British intelligence services were present at every stage of my incarceration and knew what was happening to me and to many other British prisoners.

Guardian article.

The political storm over allegations of MI5 complicity in torture escalated tonight after Alan Johnson, the home secretary, accused the media of publishing "groundless accusations" and commentators of spreading "ludicrous lies" about the Security Service.

As defence lawyers prepared to challenge the government's success in suppressing severe criticism of MI5 officers made by one of Britain's most senior judges, the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, pointed the finger at the "very top of government" saying senior ministers had probably known about claims of Britain's involvement in torture but failed to take action to stop it.

Andy Worthington writes.

In December, lawyers for Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, won an important court case in which judges ordered the British government to release information in its possession regarding claims that MI5 agents were present in the US prison in Kandahar, Afghanistan, when Shaker Aamer was subjected to torture, prior to his transfer to Guantánamo.

Clive Stafford Smith gave a similar appraisal, explaining, as Cahalan described it, that the Harper's article "added to his belief the US government was afraid of what Mr. Aamer may reveal."

Stafford Smith added: This is merely confirmation, fairly stark confirmation, that the reason they wanted not to send him home to his family in England, but rather to send him to [his native] Saudi Arabia was simply to gag him. I have known Shaker for some time, and because he is so eloquent and outspoken about the injustices of Guantánamo he is very definitely viewed as a threat by the US. Not in the sense of being an extremist but in the sense of being someone who can rather eloquently criticize the nightmare that happened there.