World Socialist Web Site
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed, a 27-year-old British citizen of Somali
descent, was allegedly tortured in Somalia with the complicity of UK
authorities. He was then flown to Britain, where his democratic rights
were further abused.Claims by Mohamed’s lawyers are backed up by
another man only referred to as “CF”. Both are attempting to sue the
British government for damages.
Last week, a Guardian
article reported that Mohamed arrived back in the UK from Somalia in
March 2011, after effectively being subjected to extraordinary
rendition. This involves the secret abduction of individuals who are
claimed to be “terrorists”, pioneered by the United States with British
complicity, who are then sent to nations that practice torture. In the
case of Mohamed, his lawyers allege he was subjected to a rendition back
to the UK.
Mohamed disappeared after a visit to a mosque in
London on November 1. He had been under a Terrorism Prevention and
Investigation Measure (TPIM) for almost two years. TPIMs are
antidemocratic “control orders” in which a person’s movements are
strictly monitored.
Mohamed disappeared after he entered the
mosque and removed his electronic tag. He left the mosque disguised in a
woman’s burka. Border Agency officials, MI5 officers and reportedly
undercover soldiers were then mobilised in a dragnet to find him.
He
had been due to appear at a court hearing over claims he had breached
the terms of the TPIM. Details about Mohamed’s legal action against the
UK’s Foreign Office, Home Office, Ministry of Defence and the Attorney
General only emerged at the High Court after a judge lifted an anonymity
order against him. The order was lifted after Mohamed’s disappearance
from the mosque, in order to assist in his apprehension.
Mohamed
travelled to Somalia in 2007 and was detained there with CF in January
2011. CF had travelled to Somalia in 2009, and both were flown back to
the UK in March 2011. Their legal action against the UK government
claims that “officers and agents...by their acts and omissions,
procured, induced, encouraged or directly caused, or were otherwise
complicit in” their detention, assault, mistreatment and torture while
in Somaliland.
Mohamed’s solicitor, Gareth Pierce, said outside
the court, “We have the most serious concerns in relation to a young man
who was hideously tortured in Somalia for two months, was forcibly and
illegally deported to this country and where the question has been
repeatedly raised of the complicity of the British authorities and the
security services in that unlawful removal.”
On Britain’s alleged involvement in the abuse and rendition of Mohamed and CF, the Guardian
reports, “It appears that, in January 2011, CF wished to return to the
UK via Addis Ababa, and asked Mohamed to help him travel across
Somaliland and on to the Ethiopian border. On the night of 14 January,
while staying in a house in the town of Burao, the pair heard a
helicopter hovering overhead. Moments later, a group of armed and
uniformed men burst through the front door, forced hoods over their
heads and tied their hands tight behind their backs”.
It
continues, “CF claims he could hear the leader giving orders in English,
with a British accent. At one point, the hoods were said to have been
lifted briefly so that their faces could be checked against what
appeared to be mugshots. Both men say they were fingerprinted and that
DNA swabs were taken from inside their cheeks; CF says ‘Bravo 1’ was
written across his forehead.”
For the next several days, both men
allege that “they faced mock executions and severe beatings, and were
then held in brightly lit cells at a prison in Somaliland. CF claims he
was kept naked for a period, and was once half-strangled with a piece of
cloth. When a UK Foreign Office consular official visited CF a month
after his detention, he recorded that marks, apparently from handcuffs,
were visible on CF’s wrists.”
Both men say they were interrogated
repeatedly, being posed questions based on information that can only
have been supplied by the British authorities. The local media reported
that their capture “was the result of a joint operation by British and
Somaliland intelligence officers.”
On March 13, both were forced aboard a flight to Dubai. The Guardian
reported that Mohamed “begged to be returned instead to Somalia, to be
reunited with his family. In Dubai, they were put aboard another flight,
to London, and guarded en route. Neither man was aware of any formal
deportation process.”
Facts have since emerged, reported by the Guardian,
pointing to Britain’s role in these heinous events. According to the
newspaper, Home Secretary Theresa May “had signed Mohamed’s control
order on 13 January 2011, the day before the pair were arrested. Then it
became clear that in March that year, two days before the pair were
taken from prison and forced aboard an aircraft, MI5 had sent an email
to police at Heathrow giving precise details of the flight upon which
the men would be arriving at the airport.”
Mohamed was stopped and
asked 118 questions under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. This
was the same legislation used to illegally detain, in August of this
year, David Miranda, the partner of former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald.
The
MI5 e-mail requested of the police, “We would be grateful if you would
NOT be drawn into any discussion with MOHAMED regarding HMG [Her
Majesty’s Government] involvement in his arrest.” It added, “You should
be aware that any such write up is likely to be disclosable in any
future civil proceedings.”
Following hours of questioning,
Mohammed was told he was being put under a control order (the
predecessor of TPIMs) and that he would have to live in Ipswich, in the
east of England, with stringent prohibitions on his activity.
MI5’s
claim that the two men were involved in terrorism poses the question,
why were they allowed to live among the general population? When news
broke of Mohamed’s disappearance from the mosque, May said he did not
pose “a direct threat” to the public.
To conceal the role of its
operatives in alleged torture and abuse of a British citizen, the
British government is utilising a new antidemocratic law, passed earlier
this year. Lawyers representing the government’s spy services are using
provisions of the Justice and Security Act. This means that any
evidence possessed by the government supporting such allegations will in
all likelihood never be made public. The Act allows for such material
only being heard by a court in secret. Even the part of a court’s final
judgment referring to such evidence would be concealed.
Yet more
draconian legislation is being prepared by the government, including
powers to make “terror suspects” stateless. May is planning the removal
of UK passports from such individuals, even if they have no other
citizenship and become “stateless” as a result.
The
Conservative/Liberal Democrat government has already confiscated the UK
passports of 16 individuals who have dual nationality.
International
human rights conventions signed by Britain, including the United
Nation’s 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, prevent a
government from making stateless a person with only one citizenship. May
has asked officials to investigate how to circumvent these conventions.
A law to this effect could be enacted through an amendment to the
immigration bill now going through parliament, according to the Financial Times .