LONDON: Britain has agreed to pay hefty settlements to a group of former Guantanamo Bay detainees who sued the government for alleged complicity in their torture – one of the first big pay-outs stemming from the US-led war on terrorism. After months of legal wrangling, Britain's spy agencies chose to settle the lawsuit to avoid a pricey and prolonged court case in which open testimony from secret agents could have jeopardized national security, a British government official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Tuesday. At least seven former detainees would receive payments and at least one man would receive more than one million pounds ($1.6 million), according to a second source who has seen details of the weekend settlement and spoke on condition of anonymity because lawyers agreed that the details would be kept confidential. British spies have not been accused of torturing detainees themselves, but former detainees have alleged that British officials violated international law by knowing about the abuse and doing nothing to stop it. In interviews last week, former US President George Bush boasted that he authorized some techniques – which others have labeled torture – for the interrogation of suspected terrorists, and that the methods yielded intelligence that saved lives. Britain has long opposed some of the interrogation techniques that Bush administration officials authorized in the so-called war on terror after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. Allegations of torture and abuse have been widespread among many Guantanamo detainees who were held in Afghanistan and other countries before being sent to the US prison camp in Cuba. But the most detailed account of abuse came from former detainee Binyam Mohamed, who alleged that Britain was aware that the CIA sent him to be interrogated in Morocco. Before he was returned to Britain from the US prison camp, lawyers for Mohamed sued in the British courts for intelligence transcripts to prove Britain knew he was being abused and that any evidence US officials had was tainted. A British court ruled that Mohamed was subjected to “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” by US authorities and ordered the release of a previously secret summary of CIA documents on the treatment of Mohamed. Under long-standing conventions, nations don't disclose intelligence shared by their allies, and the court's ruling drove a wedge between US and British intelligence officials. It also raised questions on the sanctity of intelligence sharing agreements if courts would be able to expose private exchanges in the future. The payout now also raises the question of whether other detainees outside of Britain could look to the settlement as a way of pushing pending lawsuits forward even if the British government has made no admission of guilt.
