The Binyam Mohamed evidence row

Between May and September 2004, Binyam Mohamed confessed to involvement in terrorism to American officials in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay.

He says these confessions were the result of torture and ill-treatment he had suffered while detained between his arrest in April 2002 and May 2004.

During this period he was held incommunicado in Pakistan, and he alleges that he was also taken to Morocco and a prison in Kabul.

In May 2008 he was charged by the American authorities with terrorist offences that could be subject to the death penalty.

His British lawyers asked the UK government to release documents which would assist his defence, and began High Court proceedings to require the government to provide information which it had previously declined to make available.

In August 2008 two High Court judges ruled that he was entitled to the disclosure of a number of documents.

Charges dropped
The Foreign Secretary said that 42 secret documents should not be released under public interest immunity rules, and, according to the judges, expressed the view that disclosure would harm intelligence arrangements between Britain and the US.

In October 2008 the Americans dropped charges against Binyam Mohamed - though further charges were not excluded.

The US government also conceded that the secret papers might be used by his lawyers.

However, the Foreign Secretary continues to maintain that part of the judges' August ruling should not be made public.

This amounts to some 25 lines, comprising a summary of US reports by the US authorities to the British security and intelligence services on Binyam's Mohamed's detention and treatment.
This month the judges ruled that the undisclosed part of their judgement should remain unpublished. It was clear from the declarations issued by the Foreign Secretary that if the summary were published, the Americans would review their intelligence-sharing arrangement with Britain, they said.

It would not be in the public interest to risk the loss to Britain of vital intelligence, they added.

However, in making the decision the judges criticised that threat, saying it was "difficult to conceive" that a democratically-elected and accountable government could rationally object to the summary of Mr Mohamed's treatment by US agencies being published.

Mr Miliband later denied there was any US "threat" over the issue, but said intelligence-sharing depended on confidence being maintained.

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