The head of MI5 has denied his staff withheld documents relating to the alleged torture of a UK resident from a House of Commons scrutiny committee.

It has been suggested that a senior judge believed MI5 "deliberately misled" the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee.

But MI5 director-general Jonathan Evans told the Daily Telegraph the claim was "the precise opposite of the truth".

The material concerns former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed.

Ethiopian-born Mr Mohamed, 31, alleges that UK authorities knew he was tortured at the behest of US authorities after his detention in Pakistan in 2002.

On Wednesday, the Court of Appeal ruled that the government must publish a seven-paragraph summary of exactly what British intelligence officials were told about his treatment.

The summary revealed that his treatment was "cruel, inhuman and degrading" and included deliberate sleep deprivation.

It also emerged on Wednesday that a paragraph contained in the Court of Appeal's draft judgement was removed following complaints from a senior government lawyer.

Jonathan Sumption QC told the judges it would be "exceptionally damaging" if published because it would give the impression "that the Security Service does not in fact operate a culture that respects human rights or abjures participation in coercive interrogation techniques".

He said the paragraph would be read as meaning that "officials of the Service deliberately misled the Intelligence and Security Committee" in a way that "reflects a culture of suppression in its dealings with the committee, the foreign secretary and indirectly the court".

The words to which Mr Sumption objected did not appear in the version of the judgement that was eventually published.
What a bunch of bad liars The simple answer from me: 'thats because it is suppression'.

BBC News - MI5 denies withholding documents in Binyam Mohamed case