Former Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed has asked a federal court in Washington DC to stop the United States from destroying photographic evidence that he says proves he was abused while in detention.

Ahmed Ghappour is a lawyer with the London based legal action organisation, Reprieve, and is representing Mr Mohamed.
 

“This is just a request to preserve the photographic evidence that shows him being savagely beaten by guards in Guantanamo. The US government has been stonewalling the public and denying that such abuses occur in Guantanamo Bay. That is a complete lie. This is the evidence that proves that.”

'Disappointed'

Ghappour says he’s disappointed that the new US administration isn’t cooperating more closely with Guantanamo detainees.
 

“Obama ran on a platform of transparency and accountability and we’ve seen neither of those things - at least with respect to national security or with respect to Guantanamo Bay in particular.”

Rendition

An Ethiopian refugee and British resident, Mohamed was detained in 2002 when attempting to return to London from Pakistan. Under the American “extraordinary rendition” programme, he was moved to Morocco and Afghanistan where he spent two and a half years in US detention before being transferred to the American military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
 

He was suspected of training with Al Qaeda and charged with conspiracy to build and detonate a so-called ‘dirty bomb’ on US soil.
 

All charges against him were dropped in 2009 and he was returned to Britain.

Guantanamo

While at Guantanamo, he began a case against the British government for complicity in his rendition and torture and for refusing to produce evidence Mr Mohamed claims would have demonstrated that he was tortured while in US custody.
 

The current case filed against the US government seeks to prevent the destruction of a photograph taken shortly after he was beaten by guards at Guantanamo Bay. The picture is scheduled to be destroyed because he’s no longer in prison.
 

Evidence

Ahmed Ghappour says it’s essential to preserve the evidence of what happened to Mohamed in Guantanamo, even though he’s already been released.
 

“You can’t learn from history unless you know what it is. Binyam is representative of what’s gone on to many of these men. Specifically, international complicity by governments such as the UK, torture, rendition to places like Morocco where he was savagely beaten and subject to medieval torture at the edge of a razor blade.

The thing about Binyam is that he’s got some evidence to prove all of these things. The other prisoners that we represent – we represent 33 currently in Guantanamo - complain of very similar abuses and the problem is that without having things like this evidence, it’s just a game of he-said-she-said and, unfortunately, the Pentagon is given legitimacy in these matters.”

Listen to the full interview with Ahmed Ghappour