Suspect says he was tortured

LONDON, Dec. 11 (UPI) -- An Ethiopian student being held in Guantanamo says he was tortured during several years of captivity in Morocco.

Binyam Mohammed was arrested in Pakistan for a passport violation four years ago as he tried to board a plane for London, where he had been studying. He says the British intelligence agency and Pakistani agents questioned him before turning him over to the CIA.

His lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, told the British newspaper The Observer that Mohammed says he made confessions after being tortured.

The United States recently charged Mohammed with participating in an al-Qaida plot to set off a "dirty bomb." Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was originally held on similar charges but those have been dropped.

Mohammed told his lawyer his interrogators told him he had met Padilla and dined with Khalid Mohammed, a planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"I've never met anyone like these people," Mohammed reportedly told Stafford Smith. "How could I? I speak no Arabic. I never heard Padilla's name until they told me."