Extraordinary rendition and secret prisons

This has been a bad week for the British government, in relation to two of the running sores of its foreign policy, both centred on the Overseas Territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
Diego Garcia and the surrounding islands — known collectively as the Chagos Islands — were shamefully cleared of their existing population [...]

The wheels of injustice grind so slowly at Guantánamo that it’s probably a coincidence that charges were announced against another alleged terrorist just hours after the details were revealed of how comprehensively the government had been ridiculed for its “War on Terror” detention policy in the Court of Appeals in Washington. The public barely had [...]

Yesterday, Reprieve, the legal action charity that represents over 30 prisoners in Guantánamo, issued a detailed and devastating report, Human Cargo: Binyam Mohamed and the Rendition Frequent Flier Programme, which presents compelling evidence of the rendition and torture of one of its clients, the British resident Binyam Mohamed.
Binyam’s horrific story has been in the public [...]

On Tuesday, the same day that the Pentagon officially filed charges against Guantánamo prisoner and British resident Binyam Mohamed, who will face a trial by Military Commission for “conspiracy” and “providing material support for terrorism,” a UK court approved his request for judicial review, requiring the British government to reveal whatever evidence it holds regarding [...]

Today’s Independent runs a front-page story, The Last Briton in Guantánamo faces death penalty, focusing on the plight of British resident Binyam Mohamed. Seized in Pakistan in April 2002, Binyam was subsequently rendered to Morocco, where proxy torturers, working on behalf of the Americans, tortured him for 18 months, in interrogation sessions that included regularly [...]