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Ken Clarke has confirmed the government will pay compensation to former Guantanamo Bay detainees.
In a statement to the House of Commons this afternoon the justice secretary said the payments, believed to be in the millions of pounds, were made to avoid a "protracted and extremely expensive" legal battle.
"I can today inform the House that the government has agreed a mediated settlement of the civil damages claims brought by detainees held at Guantanamo Bay," he said.
"The details of that settlement have been made subject to a legally-binding confidentiality agreement.”
He added: "No admissions of culpability have been made in settling these cases."
Clarke told MPs the payments were made in order to allow an inquiry into allegations of the government’s complicity in the mistreatment of detainees held by other countries could be held.
He said it would not have been possible to begin the inquiry when so many of the Guantanamo civil law suits brought against the government remained unresolved. He said: "We paid up the money so we could move on."
Shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan welcomed the statement and said MPs on all sides of the political divide rejected the "practice, collusion or complicity" in torture.
"On this side of the house we remain completely opposed to Guantanamo bay," he said.
And he praised former Labour foreign secretary David Miliband, who was in the Commons to hear the statement, for securing the release of all British citizens held at the American prison camp.
One Tory MP caused a stir by suggesting Tony Blair should stump up the money for the compensation as he was prime minister when the camp was open. Clarke quickly dismissed the idea.
And while the justice secretary steered clear of making party political points in his statement, he criticised Labour's record on human rights earlier in the day.
Giving evidence at the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights this afternoon Ken Clarke said he thought Labour had gotten the balance between national security and personal liberty wrong "under the pressure of events".
"I don’t think the last government was setting out to breach its obligations but I don’t think they were always sufficiently careful of it," he said.
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