BBC 5 Live's Victoria Derbyshire interviews 'fugitive' Mohammed Ahmed Mohammed's lawyer Gareth Peirce BCfm presenter Patrick Cyrus (the Virus) describes his initiation and mock execution in the British Army 15Nov13 - www.thisweek.org.uk The real question about the terror suspect who fled in a burqa: did MI5 bring him here illegally? Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed's escape was an embarrassment. The alleged torture and rendition that came before it might just be a major scandal Ian Cobain - The Guardian, Wednesday 13 November 2013 18.40 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/13/terror-suspect-burqa-mi5-rendition The hunt was on from the moment that terrorism suspect Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed sliced off the electronic tag that was strapped around his ankle, donned a burqa and slipped away from a London mosque. Within hours, the Home Office was announcing that a joint taskforce of police, Border Agency officials and MI5 officers had been ordered to track him down. According to some reports, undercover soldiers were also drafted in. One newspaper declared that Mohamed had "made a mockery" of the government's claim to protect the public, while another offered a reward for information leading to his capture: "£25k to Find the Burka Bunker". Behind the headlines about the manhunt, however, lies another story. It is one that is a little less dramatic. But in the eyes of some, it is a story that is far more disturbing. Mohamed was in Britain against his will: he had been forced aboard an aircraft in Somaliland, the breakaway territory in northern Somalia, and flown to the UK in March 2011 in an operation that his lawyers say amounted to little more than an act of rendition. He and a second man had been detained in Somaliland two months earlier and allegedly suffered severe mistreatment while they were being interrogated. Since then, evidence has emerged that the British government had a hand in their detention, and may have supplied many of the questions. As a consequence, the coalition government is now facing, for the first time, serious allegations of complicity in rendition and torture. The men's accusations, if true, would appear to flatly contradict the assurances given by the heads of the three main intelligence agencies when they stepped out of the shadows for the first time last week, telling the intelligence and security committee they have learned a great deal since 9/11, and that "at this stage" their officers could not possibly become complicit in torture. However, the public may never learn whether the allegations are true or not: when Mohamed and the second man decided to sue the British government for damages, lawyers representing the intelligence agencies called upon the secret justice provisions of the highly controversial Justice and Security Act. It is the first time that the government has resorted to these provisions since the act became law earlier this year. As a consequence of this move, any evidence that the government itself possesses that supports the allegations is unlikely ever to see the light of day. Instead, any such evidence will be heard by the court in secret, and part of the court's final judgment will also remain concealed. Mohamed, 27, and the second man, a 25-year-old, are both British citizens of Somali descent. MI5 is satisfied that both are terrorists who are deeply involved with al-Shabaab, the group that carried out the attack on Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall in September. While the two men deny this allegation, Mohamed is assessed to be linked to a group said to have received terrorism training from Saleh Nabhan, a leading al-Qaida figure suspected of involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings in east Africa. He is also said to have received terrorism training and to have fought for al-Shabaab, and is accused of helping other British men slip into and out of Somalia, where his wife and two children live. It appears that, in January 2011, CF wished to return to the UK via Addis Ababa, and asked Mohamed to help him travel across Somaliland and on to the Ethiopian border. On the night of 14 January, while staying in a house in the town of Burao, the pair heard a helicopter hovering overhead. Moments later, a group of armed and uniformed men burst through the front door, forced hoods over their heads and tied their hands tight behind their backs. CF claims he could hear the leader giving orders in English, with a British accent. At one point, the hoods were said to have been lifted briefly so that their faces could be checked against what appeared to be mugshots. Both men say they were fingerprinted and that DNA swabs were taken from inside their cheeks; CF says "Bravo 1" was written across his forehead.

• published: 17 Nov 2013
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