BRITAIN: British victims of torture called on the government yesterday to ensure that information extracted by the abuse of prisoners is not used in UK courts.
The protest came as law lords began deliberations inside parliament on whether evidence which has been obtained by torture abroad can be used in immigration cases in Britain. Human rights groups and lawyers are challenging a 2004 Appeal Court ruling that the Home Office is entitled to use such information to back up its claims that individuals pose a threat to national security, so long as British agents were not involved in carrying out or soliciting the torture.
Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen said: "This is a momentous case. The UK is at an important crossroads. It can reaffirm its stand against torture, which is absolutely banned, or slide towards illegality by its tacit acceptance that torture is sometimes OK.
Dr Bill Sampson (46), who has dual British and Canadian nationality and lives in Penrith, Cumbria, said he suffered beatings, sleep deprivation and sexual molestation during 964 days in solitary confinement in Saudi Arabia after being arrested on trumped-up charges of terrorism and spying.
He said his experience showed that evidence obtained by torture was counter-productive.
"After so many days of that type of brutality, you will say whatever it takes to stop the pain," he said.
"From the questions your interrogators are asking you, you can gather what it is that they want to hear and you will tell them it."
Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty, said: "If we are complicit in any way in torture around the world, what will we say to the terrorists who tortured Ken Bigley?
"What will we say to dictators like Saddam Hussein?
"This is the one absolute in democracy, that you do not touch torture."