By James Slack
Judges yesterda
y delivered another humiliating rebuke to David Miliband by striking down his attempts to hear a damages claim by six ex-Guantanamo Bay residents in secret.
The Court of Appeal ruled that allowing the Government to use secret evidence to defend itself against the men’s allegations of torture and ill-treatment would undermine the ‘most fundamental principles’ of fairness.
Ministers, led by the Foreign Secretary, must now decide whether to surrender to the men’s claims for tens of thousands of pounds in compensation – or fight them on a significantly weakened basis, without the use of secret documents.
Secret evidence: Binyam Mohamed, left, and Jamil El Banna are two of the former Guantanamo Bay detainees seeking to sue the Government for complicity in torture
The men – who include Binyam Mohamed, the British resident who claims the security services were complicit in his torture overseas – had previously been told that parts of MI5 and MI6’s defence could be kept secret.
But the Court of Appeal yesterday said it would ‘take a stand’ against secrecy that would undermine the ‘most fundamental principles of common law’.
The detainees were held in foreign prisons at the instigation of U.S. forces.
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The Spanish investigative magistrate at the National Court in Madrid, said he would investigate allegations made in testimony by four detainees (Hamed Abderrahman Ahmed, Lahcen Ikassrien, Jamiel Abdul Latif al Banna and Omar Deghayes) who had been held in Guantamano and later released without charges.
