British court: 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 United States 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 United States 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.

The British judges had ordered that their written ruling be withheld from the public until after Mohamed was released.