U.S. fighting Gitmo rendition lawsuit

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 10 (UPI) -- The United States has asked for an appeals-court review of a recent ruling allowing a lawsuit over the so-called rendition of terrorism suspects.

The motion from the Obama administration was made in San Francisco in the case of Binyam Mohamed and four other current or former prisoners who are suing a Bay Area company they say flew them overseas to be tortured.

The appeal was made after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit this spring reinstated the lawsuit, rejecting the government's argument that suing Boeing subsidiary Jeppessen Dataplan would cause a risk to national security.

The San Francisco Chronicle said Monday that San Jose-based Jeppessen had been portrayed as being an air-travel service for the CIA.

Mohamed, an Ethiopian refugee who was living in Great Britain, was arrested in Pakistan in 2002. He contends he was packed off to Morocco where he was worked over by interrogators before being locked up at Guantanamo Bay two years later.

The Chronicle said the case also was being litigated in Britain over the British government's alleged involvement in the rendition. The newspaper said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently warned the United States would scale back its intelligence sharing with London if details of Mohamed's treatment at Guantanamo were revealed.