A mockery of justice

The judgement related to the government's refusal to allow the publication of seven paragraphs of a report outlining the torture of Mr Mohamed by US agents with the passive complicity of Britain's secret services.

The court ordered the publication of the seven paragraphs but, so worried was the government about comments on the conduct of the security services in the draft judgement that its legal representative Jonathan Sumption QC wrote to the Master of the Rolls Lord Neuberger at the eleventh hour seeking - and succeeding - in having a lengthy paragraph condemning the intelligence service and its practices rewritten and diluted in the judgement.

But, in a highly unusual move, the judge has said he had been "over-hasty" in amending the relevent section "quite significantly" after it emerged that other interested parties had not had sight of the letter.

He therefore stated that he would give those interested parties until 4pm on Friday to lodge their objections.

The disturbing attempt to cover up yet more information in a case already blighted by government censorship was met with fury by civil liberty campaigners.

It meant that even as Foreign Secretary David Miliband was stating in the Commons that he accepted the judgement of the court, he must have been aware that the fiercest criticism contained in the judgement had been suppressed.

The watered-down judgement ordered the publication of the seven paragraphs.

But the government did succeed in having key comments removed.

Although the original judgement remains unpublished, the letter written by Mr Sumption and obtained by the Star gives a good insight into its contents.

The government failed to suppress this letter, which suggested that observations by the Master of the Rolls would be read as statements by the court that "the security service does not in fact operate a culture that respects human rights or abjures participation in coercive interrogation techniques."

It suggested that the original judgement found that MI5 officers had "deliberately misled" the intelligence and security committee, which oversees its work, and that "this reflects a culture of suppression" which "penetrates the service to such a degree as to undermine any UK government assurances based on the service's information."

Clare Algar, executive director of Reprieve, which has represented Mr Mohamed, said: "The British government must stop trying to manipulate court judgements. It is not the government's place to tell the court what to say, especially not behind closed doors."

Read the full leaked letter from the government's legal representative here.