CIA will not co-operate with MI5 torture probe.

CIA will not co-operate with Met detectives

The CIA has ruled out allowing British detectives to interview the American spies involved in the rendition and interrogation of terror suspect Binyam Mohamed.

The decision, made at the highest level of the intelligence organisation, is a major blow to the police investigation into MI5 complicity in his alleged torture.

Lawyers for the former Guantanamo Bay detainee claim MI5 agents knew he was a victim of torture and the CIA’s ‘extraordinary rendition’ programme, which saw him secretly flown to interrogation centres in countries with poor human rights records.

Baroness Scotland, the Attorney-General, announced last week that detectives will investigate whether any MI5 complicity in Mohamed’s treatment breached British law.

But crucial to the case will be what the CIA – which was holding Mohamed and transferred him from Pakistan to secret locations in Morocco and Afghanistan – told MI5 about his treatment and when.

Secret documents, which the UK Government has suppressed on national security grounds, written by American officials, allegedly give full details of his maltreatment.

But last week a highly-placed CIA official said its officers would not be made available to the Metropolitan Police inquiry.


The official told The Mail on Sunday it was ‘unlikely’ that an agent would be made available to British police for questioning. He said: ‘We have learned from the British not to take actions that are not in our best interest.’

The senior official also appeared to rule out CIA officers appearing as witnesses in any court proceedings on the issue.

He said if the British courts requested a serving agent to testify, that would be ‘difficult’ and ‘quite unlikely’. The courts, he said, would have to guarantee CIA agents immunity from prosecution and their anonymity.

He said agents would expect to testify in such a way that they could not be identified.

He said there would be ‘no name and no public appearance. He would have to speak to the court from behind a screen. Not only that, but the evidence he would provide would have to be agreed in advance’.

The source said the agency would have ‘much less difficulty’ making an agent available for questioning by British intelligence officials.

Meanwhile, the US Department of Justice revealed the difficulties British police would face if they wanted to question American government officials about the case.

A spokesman said they would not comment on ‘hypotheticals’ and that they would have no reaction until the British courts actually requested witnesses, ‘if that ever happens’.

But a senior US government legal source said that if the British courts requested evidence from US government employees, the Department of Justice would ‘almost certainly demand a guarantee of complete immunity from prosecution’.

He said: ‘Strict terms would be demanded and negotiated. For example, the British courts would not be allowed to cross-examine a US government employee on material that was considered to be classified by the US government.’