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UK court OKs torture evidence

"It is really dangerous and very worrying that any court is willing to use any evidence that has been obtained through use of torture."

Ellie Smith, human rights lawyer

British appeal court judges on Wednesday defied human rights campaigners by ruling that British courts could use evidence extracted under torture, as long as British agents were not complicit in the abuse.

In a highly controversial judgment, the second highest court in the land rejected the appeals of 10 men suspected of having links to international terrorism and currently held without charge in what activists call "Britain's Guantanamo Bay."

The court of appeal, sitting in London, ruled that the UK home secretary was right to hold the men in two high-security prisons and a high-security psychiatric hospital, and that the special immigration appeal commission, which backed the internments, was justified in doing so. Two of the men have since returned to their countries of origin but are still appealing.

The judgment was immediately condemned as leaving the door open for torture evidence to be used in British courts -- and the detainees plan to take their appeal to the House of Lords -- the final court of appeal.

On Wednesday Amnesty International criticized the judges for giving a "green light for torture." It said: "The rule of law and human rights have become casualties of the measures taken in the aftermath of September 11. This judgment is an aberration, morally and legally."

The decision comes just a week after three British men formerly held in Guantanamo Bay described how after ill treatment they had confessed to meeting up with Osama bin Laden when in fact all three had alibis, confirmed by British security services, that they were in the UK at the time.

Ellie Smith, a human rights lawyer at the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, said: "It is really dangerous and very worrying that any court is willing to use any evidence that has been obtained through use of torture or ill treatment."

The decision to allow evidence from foreign torture was tantamount to contracting out the torture.

"We have seen recent instances where the US forces have sent people to other countries for the purpose of extracting evidence," she added.

The men -- all of them foreign nationals and Muslim -- are detained indefinitely under the UKs Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001 and do not know most of the evidence against them because it is kept secret in the interests of national security.

In their appeals, they argued that to use evidence obtained by torture was "morally repugnant," adding that evidence may have been extracted from men detained in both Guantanamo Bay and Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, one of the judges, Lord Justice Laws, ruled that there was no evidence to suggest the secretary of state had relied on material derived from torture or any other violation of the European convention on human rights. To suggest that it had been was "purely hypothetical."

He and Lord Justice Pill said that torture evidence could be used in a British court so long as the state had not itself "procured" it or "connived" at it.

The position facing the secretary of state on the use of such evidence was "extremely problematic." The law could not expect the secretary of state to inquire into the methods of how information was obtained.

Laws said: "He [the home secretary] may be presented with information of great potential importance, where there is, let us say, a suspicion as to the means by which, in another jurisdiction, it has been obtained? What is he to do?"

The judges unanimously dismissed the appeal but Lord Justice Neuberger dissented on the torture issue. He said he did not consider that a person would have a fair trial if evidence obtained through maltreatment was to be used, particularly since the person giving the statement would not be available for cross-examination. The majority decision was welcomed by Home Secretary David Blunkett.

He said: "Let me make it clear, we unreservedly condemn the use of torture and have worked hard with our international partners to eradicate this practice. However, it would be irresponsible not to take appropriate account of any information that could help protect national security and public safety."
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