Lord Goldsmith on Binyam Mohamed – and Guantanamo

I’m interested that Lord Goldsmith, writing in yesterday’s Independent, essentially agrees with me on the Binyam Mohamed case:

That the High Court finally agreed – with some apparent regret – with the Foreign Secretary in believing the preservation of a fully functioning intelligence-sharing relationship between the UK and US outweighed the necessity to make public information about alleged torture is, I have to say, probably right (though there are now questions which need to be resolved about just what the concerns were).

The real thrust of his article, though is Guantanamo and the need, in his view, for the UK and other countries to accept some of the “non-returnable” prisoners, giving them some kind of humanitarian leave to remain here, in order to help the Americans close the prison. To adopt his sort of wording, I have to say he’s probably right on this: while this is America’s problem and they should take responsibility for most of the prisoners who are released, President Obama may well ask for help in relation to those prisoners with ties here, or who would prefer to come here – and I think it would be wrong to refuse.