BRITAIN: Senior British ministers and army chiefs were under pressure to define the meaning of the "interrogation-in-depth" of suspected IRA terrorists in the 1970s, records released yesterday reveal.
The term was discussed in secret Whitehall memos after an MP wrote to prime minister Edward Heath in 1972 asking him what such an interrogation would include.
MP George Cunningham congratulated Mr Heath on the banning of "wall standing, hooding, noise, deprivation of sleep and semi-starvation".
But he added: "You said that these five techniques would be banned but that interrogation-in-depth would continue.
"Besides the doubt this has caused in my mind, I have had enquiries from some of the medical experts who gave evidence to the Parker Inquiry as to whether your replies mean that some techniques for pressurising prisoners will continue."
The ministry of defence is asked to draft a reply and on one Whitehall memo are the words, "to see George Cunningham's letter to the PM, we are not entirely out of the woods yet".
Eventually, after several memos, ministers and civil servants reach an agreement on a reply stating that interrogations will be "based" on civil police practice.
The prime minister's reply also states that any new techniques introduced to aid interrogation "would mean that the government of the day would almost certainly have to seek the authority of parliament".
Memos and other documents on the issue have been released by the national archives in Kew, southwest London. - (PA)