Brits say U.S. pressured detainee to plead guilty

LONDON – Two British High Court judges revealed Monday that U.S. military prosecutors tried to pressure a former detainee at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, into a plea bargain – on charges that hadn’t been specified – that would have resulted in a 10-year sentence in addition to the years he had already been detained.

In a previously secret annex to a ruling they made last autumn, Lord Justice Thomas and Justice Lloyd Jones, who had access to classified U.S. documents, also revealed that American prosecutors had tried to pressure Binyam Mohamed into signing a statement that said he hadn’t been tortured and wouldn’t sue the U.S. government or its allies over his treatment in captivity.

The Obama administration freed Mohamed last month and returned him to Britain after holding him for seven years without charges, after the High Court’s initial statements provoked a public furor in Britain.

The High Court ruling, which was made Oct. 22 but hadn’t been published previously because of rules on confidentiality governing U.S. military commissions, said that Mohamed was asked to agree to a plea “in circumstances where there are no pending charges against him, where he has no idea how any new charges against him will be framed and where he is not to receive sight” of exculpatory evidence against him.

The Department of Justice referred questions Monday to the Pentagon, which had no comment. Neither did the State Department or the White House.

The British judges said they released the annex to their judgment partly because Mohamed “wanted it to be made clear to the world what had happened and how he had been treated by the United States government.” Mohamed lived in Britain for a number of years before he traveled to Pakistan in 2001 and was arrested. U.S. officials alleged that he was training with al-Qaida.