Release torture info, urges High Court

The government had attempted to argue that the disclosure of a number of documents, which it is believed contain details of the torture suffered by Shaker Aamer at the hands of US interrogators and the role MI5 and MI6 played in his abuse, was not in the public interest.

The documents were passed to the US Justice Department but apparently with the proviso that they not be disclosed to Mr Aamer's defence counsel.

But lawyers for Mr Aamer, who is the last Briton to remain imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, argued that the documents would prove their client was tortured into making false confessions.

Mr Aamer alleges that MI5 and MI6 agents were complicit in his torture by the US secret service in Afghanistan. In one case he says that an MI5 officer was present when he had his head repeatedly dashed against a wall and did nothing to stop his ordeal.

Richard Hermer QC said Mr Aamer's legal team urgently needed to see the material as his case was currently being reviewed in the US.

Giving his ruling, Lord Justice Sullivan said: "Our present view is that this matter is clearly very urgent.

"If this information is to be of any use it has to be put in the claimant's hands as soon as possible."

The government immediately announced it was to apply for a public interest immunity certificate in an attempt to prevent the publication of the material.

Reprieve director Clive Stafford Smith, who has represented Mr Aamer in the US courts for almost five years, asked: "Why is the British government willing to share materials that would help prove Mr Aamer's innocence with the American authorities and yet refuse to allow anyone who actually has Mr Aamer's interests at heart to see them?

"With respect, reasonable observers must conclude that these materials must be extraordinarily embarrassing and that the government wants to avoid any risk that the evidence of criminal misconduct might one day come to light.

"Rather than try to cover up its wrongdoing in court, the British government should come clean and focus its energy on securing his release," Mr Stafford Smith added.