Genital Torture of Guantanamo Prisoner?

The AP is reporting that the US has photographic evidence of torture of a Guantanamo prisoner in which a doctor's scalpel was used to slash the prisoner's genitals when the prisoner was rendered to Morocco.  Apparently, Mr. Bush believes that torture under even his convoluted definition does not occur if it happens off US soil.

According to a British human rights group, Reprieve, US forces rendered a Guantanamo Bay inmate to Morocco and then tortured him:

Reprieve said their client, Binyam Mohamed, had his genitals slashed repeatedly with a doctor's scalpel while in custody in Morocco after he was flown there from Pakistan by American officials in 2002. It also said his U.S. captors later took pictures of the abuse to show authorities that his wounds were healing.

Mohamed is an Ethiopian national and former British resident who the US charged with plotting with al-Qaeda to bomb US apartment buildings. Reprieve says the charge is based on information the US obtained from Mohamed when he was tortured.

Reprieve provided detailed facts obtained from Mohamed, who stated that an American woman took pictures of his wounds before "he boarded a plane in the Moroccan city of Rabat on the night of Jan. 21, 2004."

"When she saw the injuries I had she gasped. She said: 'Oh, my God, look at that!' Then all her mates looked at what she was pointing at and I could see the shock and horror in her eyes," Mohamed was quoted as saying. "Later, when I was in Afghanistan, they took more pictures. They were treating me, and one of them explained that the photos were 'to show Washington it's healing."'

In this case, the prisoner's account was "confirmed by an unidentified journalist [Reprieve] says spoke with a U.S. intelligence agent who saw the photographs. The group has urged the United States not to destroy them."

Other facts reported by the Guardian lend some additional credibility to this story. Reprieve provided to the "Foreign Office a 55-page dossier, Human Cargo, about the case of the former Kensington cleaner who was rendered to Morocco and Afghanistan before being flown to the US camp on Cuba."  It may be that the British government has classified information about this case which has not been disclosed:

Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve's director, said Britain's parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, the ISC, had made clear that British officials knew more about the case than had been disclosed. The ISC said in its report on rendition last year that intelligence passed by the British to the US was used in Mohamed's interrogation and assurances had not been sought from the US about the proper treatment of detainees.

"The UK says that the evidence it has is classified," Stafford Smith said. "The fact that the UK provided information for use in interrogations in Morocco is very important."

The Guardian also reported that a "US military defence lawyer at Guantánamo Bay said this week that he had been told by the Pentagon that interrogators had been instructed to destroy notes in case they were called to testify on the treatment of detainees."

We can only hope that Binyam Mohamed will now have his day in court given the US Supreme Court ruling on habeas corpus today.