Fri, Jun 11, 2010 page6

• Europe hails UK torture inquiry

  EXAMPLE The Council of Europe said a well done inquiry into UK culpability in torture during the fight against terrorism could be used as a model for other countries to follow

  • THE GUARDIAN
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  The decision by the UK’s coalition government to hold an inquiry into the country’s involvement in torture and rendition was on Wednesday hailed by the Council of Europe as “a proper response” that could offer an example to other nations.

  The council’s commissioner for human rights, Thomas Hammarberg, said the inquiry must be “thorough, comprehensive and as open as possible,” but added: “If well done, it could set an example for other countries.”

  Hammarberg singled out Sweden, Poland and the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia as states that also needed to establish independent inquiries into complicity in human rights abuses since the al-Qaeda attacks of September 2001. A recent inquiry in Romania had left questions unanswered, he said.

  “Other European governments should also initiate investigations,” Hammarberg said. “The time has come to break the conspiracy of silence around the complicity of European governments in the human rights violations which have taken place during the counterterrorism actions since September 2001.”

  Hammarberg said more details about systematic torture, secret detentions and other serious human rights violations after 9/11 had emerged.

  “It is crucial that lessons are learned and that requires that allegations are investigated and the real facts exposed,” he said. “This is also what the European convention on human rights requires. The positive obligation of states to conduct effective investigations into arguable claims of torture and other ill-treatment is firmly established in the case law of Strasbourg court.”

  Before the election, both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats said there needed to be a judicial inquiry into the evidence of British involvement in torture during the “war on terror.”

  Last month British Foreign Secretary William Hague confirmed that an inquiry would be established, but has yet to outline what form it will take.

  He told the BBC: “We will be setting out in the not-too-distant future what we are going to do about the allegations that have been made about complicity in torture. Will there be an inquiry of some form? Yes, both parties in the coalition said they wanted that. We are working on what form that should take. Proposals on this will follow pretty soon.”

  There have been disclosures in the courts and in the media in recent years about the manner in which British intelligence officers were told they could interrogate terrorism suspects they knew were being tortured, and the way in which that secret interrogation policy was used in effect to subcontract torture to overseas ­intelligence agencies.

  There have also been disclosures about the way in which British airspace and facilities were used during the US program of extraordinary rendition and about orders that led to British special forces in Iraq handing over detainees to US forces, despite fears they were to be tortured. In addition, the British army has admitted that at least eight people died in its custody in Iraq, including a number who were being interrogated using illegal techniques such as hooding.

  Hammarberg said a number of European states feared that “robust truth-seeking procedures” might damage intelligence-sharing arrangements with the US. He said the Canadian government had demonstrated that effective inquiries could be held without damaging such relationships.
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