The British government [has] disclosed once-secret details of the United States' harsh treatment of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee after losing a lengthy legal battle to suppress the information. According to the information, from a judge's summary of a classified CIA report to British authorities, Binyam Mohamed was subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment during interrogations in Pakistan in 2002, including being shackled and deprived of sleep while interrogators played upon "his fears of being removed from United States custody and 'disappearing.' " Mohamed, 31, was born in Ethiopia and lives in Britain. Arrested in Pakistan in 2002, he says he was tortured by American authorities and others under U.S. instruction there and in Morocco. He says he was beaten with a leather strap, subjected to a mock execution and sliced with a scalpel on his chest and penis. Mohamed says Britain knew about his treatment because information used during his questioning could have come only from British intelligence. He spent seven years in detention, four of them at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Reprieve, a legal organization representing Mohamed in a lawsuit against the British government, said in a statement that the disclosures show that "the U.S. documented their efforts to abuse Mr. Mohamed" and that British authorities "knew he was being abused and did nothing about it."
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