by Cary Gee

THE High Court in London has been hearing a two-day appeal by the last British resident held in Guantánamo Bay.

Ethiopian-born Binyam Mohamed came to Britain in 1994. He claimed political asylum and was granted leave to remain while his case was resolved.

Twenty-year-old Mr Mohamed was subsequently detained in April 2002 as he attempted to return to Britain from Pakistan.

He claims he was been taken first to Afghanistan and then to Morocco for questioning before being transferred to Guantánamo, where American authorities charged him with having trained at an al Qaida training camp in Afghanistan. Mr Mohamed has also been accused of receiving instructions from al Qaida leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed on conducting acts of terrorism in the United States. He denies all the charges.

Prior to the hearing, the Foreign Office, which has asked the US to release Mr Mohamed, said it was working on requests made by his legal team to release information concerning his detention, including details of a three-hour interrogation conducted by British intelligence officers.

Mr Mohamed’s lawyers are seeking to establish that their client was subjected to “extraordinary rendition” by the US. If convicted by a military tribunal in the US, he could face the death penalty.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We continue to discuss Mr Mohamed’s case with the US authorities and to pursue the request for his release from the Guanatánamo Bay detention facility and return to the UK.”

Human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, who is representing Mr Mohamed, said: ‘The issue here is whether the British Government has an obligation to help us prove that torture evidence has been extracted from him and that is effectively the only evidence the US military is trying to use to convict him.”

The High Court will also hear requests for access to flight records from Diego Garcia which could establish whether planes used for “extraordinary rendition” refuelled on the British-dependent territory, as well as evidence that Mr Mohamed’s genitals were repeatedly slashed with a razor blade while he was being held in Morocco.