MI5 kendt skyldig i tortur, nådesløs kritik fra dommer – ville det ske i Danmark?

Sagen er alvorlig, og vi har skrevet om den før:

Den britiske borger Binyam Mohamed, som blev holdt fange og torteret i Pakistan og senere sendt til Guantanamo, efter at han havde læst en satirisk artikel om, hvordan man bygger en atombombe, blev udsat for voldsom tortur. Det brtiske efterretningsvæsen MI5 medvirkede i denne tortur, hvilket såvel  tjenesten selv som den britiske regering lige siden har forsøgt at dække over ved løgnagtige påstande om “hensyn til fremmede magter”, nemlig USA.

En dommer har nu afgjort, at MI5 var medskyldig i denne tortur, og har i en helt usædvanligt voldsom kritik karakteriseret tjenesten som uhæderlig, løgnagtig og uden respekt for menneskerettighederne.

The Guardian skriver om sagen:

Amid mounting calls for an independent inquiry into the affair, three of the country’s most senior judges – Lord Judge, the lord chief justice, Sir Anthony May, president of the Queen’s Bench Division, and Lord Neuberger – disclosed evidence of MI5’s complicity in Mohamed’s torture and unlawful interrogation by the US.

So severe were Neuberger’s criticisms of MI5 that the government’s leading lawyer in the case, Jonathan Sumption QC, privately wrote to the court asking him to reconsider his draft judgment before it was handed down.

The judges agreed but Sumption’s letter, which refers to Neuberger’s original comments, was made public after lawyers for Mohamed and media organisations, including the Guardian, intervened.

They argued that Neuberger had privately agreed with Sumption to remove his fierce criticisms without giving then the chance to contest the move.

In his letter, Sumption warned the judges that the criticism of MI5 would be seen by the public as statements by the court that the agency:

• Did not respect human rights.

• Had not renounced participation in “coercive interrogation” techniques.

• Deliberately misled MPs and peers on the intelligence and security committee, who are supposed to scrutinise its work.

• Had a “culture of suppression” in its dealings with Miliband and the court.

Sumption described Neuberger’s observations in his draft judgment as “an exceptionally damaging criticism of the good faith of the Security Service as a whole”.

His letter also refers to the MI5 officer known as Witness B, who is understood to have interrogated Binyam Mohamed in Pakistan in 2002. Witness B gave evidence in the hearings and is now at the centre of a Scotland Yard investigation. Sumption’s letter implies that Neuberger did not believe that Witness B was acting alone and that the judge believed that Witness B’s conduct was “characteristic of the service as a whole”.

Kritikken kunne ikke ret godt være voldsommere og har kastet hele efterretningstjenesten ud i en krise, som i allerhøjeste grad smitter af på den regering, der hele tiden og med stort set alle midler har forsøgt at dække over skandalen til skade for sagens offer Binyam Mohamed, der under sit fangenskab blev udsat for den mest ubegribelige tortur:

As many will recall, Mohamed was seized by the Pakistanis in April 2002, turned over to the Americans for a $5,000 bounty, abused for three months, rendered to Morocco, tortured with razor blades to the genitals, rendered on to the “Dark Prison” in Kabul, tortured some more, and then held for five years without charge or trial in Bagram air force base and Guantánamo Bay.

Og dog viser sagen noget om Storbritannien, som man ikke ville se her i Danmark: Storbritannien har faktisk et fungerende, uafhængigt retsvæsen, der en gang i mellem trækker en streg i sandet.

I en tilsvarende sag i Danmark, hvor domstolene fødes i en usund symbiose med det øvrige retsvæsen og især Justitsministeriet, ville der blive dækket over en sag, der var så uheldig for regeringen, og en skræmt dommer ville lade sig forlede til at fastslå, at der ikke var noget at komme efter.

I mellemtiden kan man så undre sig over, hvad der egentlig blev af det åbne samfund, man skulle forestille at “forsvare”, i den her krig mod terror: Hvorfor en sådan eftergivenhed overfor menneskeretskrænkelser, og det i et land, som normalt har ry for at være så civiliseret, at det forbød tortur allerede i middelalderen, mens hjul og stejle drejede lystigt herhjemme?

Der venter vist et større opgør ovre på den anden side af Nordsøen.