British Gitmo Inmates Win Huge Payouts From UK

LONDON (Nov. 16) -- A group of former Guantanamo Bay inmates who claim British spies helped torture them will receive millions of dollars in payouts from the U.K. government.

The 10 men -- some of whom are British nationals, while others arrived in the U.K. as asylum seekers -- have filed a range of allegations against the British government, including that U.K. officials knew they were being illegally transferred to Guantanamo Bay but failed to prevent it. There are also allegations that British security and intelligence agents colluded in their torture and abuse while the men were held abroad.

It's thought that ministers decided to settle after intelligence agencies warned that national security could be put at risk if secret documents detailing U.K.-U.S. cooperation on the so-called "extraordinary rendition" of terrorist suspects were disclosed in court. Such a case would likely have taken years and cost the government tens of millions of dollars in legal fees.

Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke will give a statement to Parliament on the payouts, which he is expected to simply say are in the national interest, according to The Guardian. The exact amounts handed over to the suspects -- some of whom are alleged to have links with the Afghan Taliban -- will likely never be officially announced. But according to U.K. TV news station ITN, at least one of the men is set to receive more than $1.6 million.

Binyam Mohamed -- who arrived in Britain as a refugee from Ethiopia in 1994 and converted to Islam in 2000 -- is expected to receive one of the largest payments. Pakistani authorities arrested him in 2002 on suspicion of terrorism, and he claims that he was ferried between U.S.-approved torture centers in Morocco and Afghanistan before eventually arriving in Guantanamo.

He was freed in 2009, but on his return to the U.K. he alleged that British agents had interviewed him between torture sessions, making them complicit in his mistreatment. And in February, a U.K. court released a top-secret U.S. intelligence report detailing the "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" the British resident had allegedly suffered while in American custody.

Other ex-inmates in line for settlements include Bisher al-Rawi, Jamil el-Banna, Richard Belmar, Omar Deghayes, Moazzam Begg and Martin Mubanga, according to The Guardian.

The payments are sure to prove controversial in the U.K., as some of the former Guantanamo inmates have allegedly called for the destruction of the British state previously. However, Shami Chakrabarti -- the director of U.K. human rights organization Liberty -- said, "It's not very palatable, but there is a price to be paid for lawlessness and torture in freedom's name. There are torture victims who were entitled to expect protection from their country," reported the London Times.

John Sawers, head of Britain's foreign spy service MI6, said last month that torture was "illegal and abhorrent under any circumstances, and we have nothing whatsoever to do with it." But he added that his organization faced "dilemmas" to avoid using foreign intelligence obtained through torture.