The Metropolitan Police are to investigate claims that British agents colluded in torture, Scotland Yard said today.

Officers will look into allegations by Binyam Mohamed, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, that MI5 officers were complicit in the treatment he received while being detained.

The case was referred to police by the Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, earlier this year

Mr Mohamed, a former UK resident, was arrested in Pakistan in 2002. He alleges that he was tortured by Pakistani agents and interrogated by the FBI and MI5 over the next three months. He says he was then taken to Morocco after being subjected to extraordinary rendition by the CIA with the explicit knowledge of the Security Service.

During further torture in Morocco, he says he became aware that his torturers were being fed questions and material from British intelligence agents.

Ethiopian-born Mohamed, who lived in London before his arrest, was then taken to Guantanamo Bay, where he stayed for four years before returning to this country on February 23

David Davis, former Shadow Home Secretary. said: “Every step of this process has reinforced the fact that there is a serious case to answer on the torture of Binyam Mohamed and complicity in that of agents of the British Government.

“I hope that this investigation is carried out expeditiously so we can quickly draw to a conclusion the events of these last seven years.

“Nevertheless, this is not a substitute for a proper judicial inquiry into how our Government allowed itself to become complicit in torture, thereby undermining our moral standing in the struggle against terrorism and Islamic extremists.”

Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights group Liberty, said: “Having first made police complaints in 2005, we are hugely encouraged that a criminal inquiry into British complicity in torture has finally begun.

“We fear that the police will soon need to broaden their investigations into a number of other cases and that a broader judicial inquiry into the darkest aspects of the UK’s war on terror is now unavoidable.”

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