Gitmo prisoner's lawyers accuse Defense Secretary Gates of lying about torture

By GottaLaff

Nobody's talking about this. No, the priorities of the news media are Caroline Kennedy and the Rod Blagojevich scandal. Big hair, bad running suits, repeated use of the F-word, and condemning the Dem du Jour are far weightier than whether or not our Secretary of Defense might have falsified an affidavit about some dark-skinned detainee:

Lawyers for a British resident held at Guantánamo Bay have accused Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, of signing a "flagrantly false" affidavit to avoid having to disclose evidence of torture.

In a sworn affidavit to a district court in Washington, Gates says the US authorities have provided Binyam Mohamed's lawyers and the British government with all the information they possess relating to Mohamed's treatment while held in secret prisons. Gates declared his affidavit to be the truth "under penalty of perjury".

Clive Stafford Smith, Mohamed's lawyer and director of Reprieve, the charity that fights miscarriages of justice and human rights abuses, has told the court that Gates's affidavit is "flagrantly false". He has asked the court whether Gates was aware Mohamed was held incommunicado for three years in Pakistan, Morocco, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. Stafford Smith says there seems to be only one explanation for the affidavit: the defence secretary has been "misadvised".

The claims refer to what US officials knew about Mohamed's treatment and where he was rendered to. They also refer to obligations under international law and US domestic law.

When you stop and think about all the horrendous secrets that shouldn't be kept, all the crimes that shouldn't have been committed, and all the deceitful U.S. officials (former and current) who shouldn't have skated, it's stunning.

We all know these things are happening, but we are reduced to the status of rubberneckers driving by a multi-car pileup.