UK links to torture go beyond complicity to active involvement
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Version 0 of 1. There’s a debate in Britain on whether to hold a judicial inquiry into UK involvement in torture. This comes in the light of last week’s Senate committee report on use in the US of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques – that is, torture. But the debate should not be about mere UK involvement or complicity in torture. It is the UK’s actual use of torture – most notably in Iraq – that needs judicial scrutiny in public. That is the story, despite the fact that today’s al-Sweady inquiry found the most serious allegations to be unfounded. And it’s the story the Ministry of Defence seek to cover up now with its constant attack on “unscrupulous lawyers” bringing forward cases on an “industrial scale”. But if the UK unlawfully kills and tortures Iraqis in detention, as has happened, then the law requires that the state must investigate all of these cases, and do so at the time of the incidents – that is, from 2003 onwards. The senate report summarised the techniques used against 39 detainees: “electricity; lighted cigarettes; freezing temperatures; withholding medical treatment; forced nudity; sexual humiliation; object rape; beatings with enough violence to break bones; prolonged sleep deprivation and interrogation; mock executions; various forms of sensory deprivation to include confinement in coffin boxes; prolonged standing and suspension from ceilings and door frames to increase stress; threats of harm to family members; and waterboarding.” But the shocking facts about Iraq are that the UK used all of the above techniques and many more. In September 2011 the 1,400-page Baha Mousa public inquiry report painstakingly documented how the UK had trained its forces in unlawful interrogation techniques at the Defence Intelligence and Security Centre in Chicksands. These techniques included the use of hooding, sleep deprivation, dietary deprivation, stress techniques and the use of noise – techniques banned from Northern Ireland – and much worse: forced nudity, disorientation, threats, debility and many others. The report had 73 recommendations to eradicate such illegality. But the reality of what we did in Iraq is so much worse. Over the past few months my team has registered claims for judicial review with the high court on behalf of more than 700 Iraqi victims, adding to the 200 cases previously dealt with by high court judgments in May and October 2013. By the end of January there will be more than 1,100 cases of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, deaths in custody and other unlawful killings. There are at least a further 30 Baha Mousa-type cases we know about. The book of stories now available is like a latter-day Lord of the Flies, except it describes the work of a modern democratic European state at work in the cradle of civilisation. It is a shocking read: multiple anal rapes and other serious sexual abuse; the routine abuse of women and children; the detention and abuse of minors; the use of dogs; sexual, religious and cultural humiliation; the use of hardcore pornography; serious threats of all types; mock executions. Casual brutality was meted out to all and sundry: to sheikhs in front of their families; to women and children in their homes; to young men held incommunicado; to children casually dispatched by lethal force. Essentially, as history shows, it was the British who developed coercive interrogation techniques in its counterinsurgency struggles after the second world war. The CIA learned from us, not the other way round. Further, given that Britain was going into Iraq with the US, there was a political imperative from the highest level for an interrogation capability. The UK wanted to punch its weight with the US. Today’s al-Sweady report rightly picks up on some of the important systemic issues in play. Though it concludes that allegations of murder and torture made against British soldiers by Iraqi detainees were deliberate lies, its findings that unlawful interrogation techniques were used reinforce the recommendations from the earlier Baha Mousa report. Importantly it picks up on the role of doctors, and medics and finds them to be in dereliction of their duty. Many of these new Iraqi victims claim to have been seriously abused and assaulted before they were seen by doctors. If the medics had done their job – that is, reported that abuse to their medical commanding officer – the stories of ill treatment would have ended there. Today’s report recommends changes to attempt to bring the doctors into line with their basic duties. It is a further step in the right direction. What is needed now is a judicial inquiry into Britain’s use of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. It must require the Ministry of Defence to do what it has refused to do for years: namely, tell the truth as to how many Iraqis died in custody, died as a result of lethal force, or were interrogated. That inquiry can usefully deal with issues of UK complicity too. Its main focus, though, must be to ensure that UK forces abide by the rule of law and never again act as torturers and wanton killers in foreign fields. • Prof Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers acts in all of the cases referred to above |