As far as torture is concerned, CarolC, it would be hard to deny now that Westminster turns out to be guilty, at least by association. - Peter K ("the right sort" Fionn)

With what has been reported and trotted out by both sides in this affair so far I would say that it has all but become impossible for Binyam Mohamed to prove his case against MI5.

BM left UK (on false papers??) in June 2001 he went to Pakistan and then went to Afghanistan where he went to the Al-Qaeda, Al-Farouq camp where he was trained in the use of small arms, explosives, use of terrain, simple coding and falsifying of documents.

On 10th April 2002 he was arrested in Karachi Airport attempting to leave the country on a false Passport (He obviously had "dipped" the falsifying of documents part of his Al-Qaeda finishing school). Considering the events happening in that neck of the woods around this time, old Binyam could not be described as being the sharpest knife in the drawer. Considering where he had been and what he had been doing, his preferred route home travelling on the papers he had appears to have been as sensible as and somewhat akin to somebody sticking their head in a lions mouth and kicking it in the bollocks.

Held by the ISI he told told them that he had been trained to go and fight in Chechnya and had no intention of attacking Americans. Exactly how he thought that that would get him off the hook I do not have the foggiest notion.

He is held in Karachi from April to July being interrogated (we have no idea of the frequency of the interviews) and at some time in those three months he is interviewed by an official from either MI5 or MI6 (although I think it has now been established it was MI5)

There was only that one single interview and until he landed back in the UK last year to leap onboard the gravy train that is NULiebour-PC-wracked Britain nobody from MI5 saw Binyam Mohamed again.

Back to our tale as told by the ACLU. Binyam is now flown out of Karachi to Morocco where he is held for 18 months. It was in Morocco that he details graphically for the benefit of public opinion the torture undergone during his stay.

18 months on from July 2002 brings us to January 2004 when Binyam Mohamed is flown to Bagram Air Base Afghanistan. Where according to his account to ACLU interrogations took place on almost a daily basis. As part of the interrogation process he was shown pictures of Afghanis and Pakistanis and was interrogated about the story behind each picture. Although Mohamed knew none of the persons pictured, he would invent stories about them so as to avoid further torture. - Absolutely the very last thing that he should have done, definitely the very worst thing could have done.

His stay in Afghanistan lasted until September 2004 when he was flown to Guantanamo.

Exactly how this non-British Subject and non-British Passport Holder (his forged one doesn't count) ended up back in the UK could only be explained by either Cherie Blair, High Court Judge, or some gormless NULiebour politician, he certainly had no rightful claim to return, being after all an Ethiopian citizen, but none-the-less he clues up on our shores in 2009 and starts this circus.

The charge against MI5 is that they colluded in his torture:

Definition: To collude - to agree or co-operate secretly for a fraudulent or otherwise illegal purpose.

Did MI5 agree to Binyam Mohamed's torture? Were they ever told about it? More importantly did they know of any torture prior to that single interview? Binyam Mohamed and his legal team of course have to prove that they did know it for fact, and that will be hard for them to do. MI5 on the other hand being the defendant do not have to prove anything.

Did MI5 co-operate in the torture of Binyam Mohamed? Hardly the only time they ever saw him was during the course of one single interview in Karachi weeks before he was spirited off to Morocco and torture (according to what Binyam Mohamed told the ACLU).

As Binyam Mohamed was an Ethiopian travelling on a forged British passport were the British Authorities in Morocco, the FCO and MI5 kept informed by the US, or the Moroccans about the Binyam Mohamed?? I do not think so.

Questions put to Binyam concerning his time in the UK while he was in Morocco he claims could only have come from MI5, but no-one from MI5 interrogated him in Morocco the questions put to him came from the US who had received them in written form from MI5, so exactly how on earth could MI5 know how Binyam Mohamed was being treated let alone have colluded with his interrogators. The whole thing is a complete and utter nonsense, apart from the aspect of it seriously damaging the sharing of intelligence between the USA and the UK in the future.