London, June 30: The Britain’s High Court judges and the New-York based Human Rights Watch are pressing government to reconsider an interrogation permit that resulted in illegal detention and torture of terror suspects.
Reprieve, a legal charity in the High Court, said the governmental advice to MI5 and MI6 officers interrogating suspects detained in other countries since the 9/11 attacks in 2001 justifies torture.
Reprieve has called for a judicial review of the guidance with Justice Collins saying the interrogation methods used by UK officers abroad “indicated that there may well have been complicity in acts of torture”.
Meanwhile, a Tuesday report by Human Rights Watch said the interrogations under London authorization are “embarrassing” and “undermine the absolute prohibition on torture”.
The human rights body referred to UK record in Pakistan as a case in point saying “the UK is indifferent about the torture of terrorism suspects in its custody”.
At the high court, Justice Collins said London has not indicated that its intelligence personnel’s behavior has violated its directives, “accordingly, the inference could be drawn that the guidance was … unlawful.”
In the context of such grave misgivings about government permitting torture, James Eadie QC ruled that a review of the guidance is futile as the government is preparing to “immediately” replace it with new orders.
The interrogation directives have once been revised in May 2004 following the scandal in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, but the details have been kept secret.
——–Agencies