British police starts probe of Guantanamo torture claims

LONDON, England (CNN) - The Metropolitan Police Service launched a criminal investigation Friday into allegations of torture made by a former prisoner at the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, New Scotland Yard said.

Ethiopian-born Binyam Mohamed, who has accused the British government of being complicit in his abuse, said he was tortured into falsely

confessing to terrorist activities while in U.S. custody in Morocco.

Attorney General Patricia Scotland announced in March that MPS would take on the investigation. Her office already had done a five-month inquiry into Mohamed's allegations. In the interim, MPS consulted with the Crown Prosecution Service and other entities.

Mohamed was arrested in Pakistan in April 2002, and transferred to Morocco in July of that year before being moved to a U.S. military prison in Afghanistan, and finally to Guantanamo in 2004.

He was released in February, and the United Kingdom accepted him as a resident, since he previously had lived there.

He specifically fingered the British intelligence agency MI5 in his claim of complicity. However, police have not said whether they are focusing on specific people or agencies.

When he was released from Guantanamo, Mohamed issued a statement saying, "I have been through an experience that I never thought to encounter in my darkest nightmares."

"Before this ordeal, 'torture' was an abstract word to me. I could never have imagined that I would be its victim."

Mohamed said he was not asking for vengeance, but "only that the truth should be made known, so that nobody in the future should have to endure what I have endured."