No action against UK spy over torture claims

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http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/international/2010/November/international_November867.xml§ion=international

(Reuters)

17 November 2010,

LONDON - An officer in Britain’s domestic spy agency MI5 will not be prosecuted over allegations he was complicit in the torture of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, the head of the intelligence service said on Wednesday.

Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian national and British resident, has been fighting a legal battle to prove he was tortured while in Pakistan in 2002 and that British authorities knew about it. The head of MI5 has denied his agency colluded in torture.

On Tuesday, the British government announced it would make secret payments to 16 former detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay on Cuba, believed to include Mohamed, in an out-of-court settlement of civil damages claims without admitting responsibility for any torture.