Crispin Black on the Binyam Mohamed torture judgment: Massive sense of perspective fail

So it’s now official –  Binyam Mohamed was tortured while he was detained by the US, and MI5 knew this, but lied about it. Needless to say, this is pretty serious, so who should we be getting pissed off at first? The US, for doing the torturing? MI5, for lying? The House of Commons’ Intelligence and Security Committee, for totally failing to notice or do anything about said collusion in torture? No, no and no again. According to ‘independent intelligence consultant’ Crispin Black, the real villains of the piece are Lords Neuberger, Judge and May, the judges who found that MI5 had ‘a dubious record relating to actual involvement, and frankness about any such involvement, with the mistreatment of Mr Mohamed when he was held at the behest of US officials.’ Their judgment is ‘over the top’, and ‘judicial bullying’, apparently.

Why Mr. Black thinks the judges’ opinion is wrong is something he doesn’t deign to share with us, of course. He suggests – perhaps quite plausibly – that MI5 probably wouldn’t have acted as they did without the knowledge of the Government, (and his criticism of the judges for overlooking this may well have some validity), but on what planet does that imply that MI5 are innocent of what the judges are claiming? Unless I’ve misunderstood, and it’s just that in his view colluding in and lying about the torture of only one person is enough to deserve the damning criticism of ‘a dubious record’? And in any case, since when is a judge making a judgment (which is kind of their job after all) an example of bullying?

I genuinely can’t understand this reaction. MI5 might not be the only guilty party in all this (in fact, since it was the Americans who tortured Mohamed, they most definitely aren’t), but deserving of sympathy? Really? I think not.