JURIST - Paper Chase: UK police to investigate MI5 agent role in US detainee alleged abuse

[JURIST] UK Attorney General Janet Scotland [official profile] said Thursday that police would conduct an investigation [statement, PDF] into claims that an agent of the country's MI5 [official website] intelligence service took part in the allegedly abusive interrogation of former Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainee Binyam Mohamed [BBC profile; JURIST news archive]. Scotland said she determined the investigation was necessary after reviewing allegations [JURIST report] that an MI5 agent gave US CIA agents questions that were asked of Mohammed during his alleged torture in Morocco. Mohamed, a native of Ethiopia who claims to have been transferred to Morocco for torture under a US program of extraordinary rendition [JURIST news archive], said he obtained the documents through the US legal process while seeking his release from Guantanamo Bay.

Earlier this month, the UK government's independent reviewer of terror laws called for a judicial inquiry [JURIST report] into British complicity in US rendition and torture. British media reported last week that UN special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak told British ministers that MI5 may have been complicit [JURIST report] in torture committed while detainees including Mohamed were in US custody. Mohamed was returned to the UK [JURIST report] last week following seven years of detention, including five at Guantanamo Bay, where he was held on charges of conspiring to commit terrorism. Those charges were dismissed [JURIST report] in October, but Mohamed remained in custody while US authorities considered filing new charges.