With Liberty And Justice For All
by Chicher • Saturday, March 28th, 2009 - 11:44 amTagged: Binyam Mohamed, Torture, pleas bargainCourt says US asked detainee to drop torture claim
LONDON — U.S. authorities asked a Guantanamo Bay detainee to drop allegations of torture and agree not to speak publicly about his ordeal in exchange for his freedom, according to British court documents.
A ruling by two British High Court judges, issued in October but released only on Monday, said the U.S. offered former detainee Binyam Mohamed a plea bargain last year – six years after he was first detained as an enemy combatant.
It was the first time details of the plea bargain offer were made public. The ruling said U.S. military prosecutors also asked that Mohamed plead guilty to two charges, accept a three-year sentence and agree to testify against other suspected terrorists.
Mohamed, an Ethiopian who moved to Britain as a teenager, was arrested in Pakistan in 2002. He claims he was tortured both there and in Morocco, before he was transferred to Guantanamo in 2004.
He was freed in February after months of negotiation between the U.S. and Britain. All charges against him were dropped last year.
Mohamed refused to agree to any deal that prevented him from discussing his treatment, Lord Justice John Thomas and Mr. Justice David Lloyd Jones said in the ruling.
“He wanted it to be made clear to the world what had happened and how he has been treated by the United States government since April 2002,” Thomas said in the ruling.
March 28th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
This was Standard Operating Procedure with the Bushies. Despicable.
March 28th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
And you think your local court system is any better? Ha! Try suing a politician or a lawyer and watch what happens. The judiciary in this country is toast and has been for decades.
March 28th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Dr. Know, on top of that some media assholes were arguing Obama should be "bipartisan" by appointing more conservative judges - I think the current ratio on the federal level is 2/3rds conservative, and some are real whack jobs. But of course, the article authors (supposedly objective) never mentioned the landscape...
There are times the powerful are held accountable, but it's the exception.
March 28th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
You have to remember, Bat, that conservative is a codeword for "those with money." There are no truly conservative entities in the government at all - only those who protect and kowtow to the wealthy who attained wealth by gaming the system unfairly.
I spent years suing an ex-US district attorney appointed by Nixon and his fugitive felon son a few years back. (Newt's Emory University bud, along with FL state Rep Tillie Fowler and the "judge" who heard the case) I was threatened, burned out twice, threatened some more, and the judges that "heard" the case, from the local Superior to the State Supreme Court, ignored subpoenas, the discovery process, failed to force witnesses to appear for depositions, and ignored their own previous rulings, legal precident, and common sense. They were both appointed to the State Supreme Court a year later by Zell Miller. The courts and lawyers of this country are a total sham, and the participants are lying bastards with no conscience or integrity.
Look into J.A.I.L. It is needed badly.