Who's to blame for torture? Lawyers probe logs

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October 28th, 2010 5:10 AM

Who's to blame for torture? Lawyers probe logs

LONDON (AP) — It has been one of the most bitter legal debates during the so-called war on terror — who's to blame for torture and how many degrees of separation are needed to dodge a lawsuit?

The answer may lie in recently leaked documents, which lawyers and human rights groups hope will be a treasure trove of evidence that could prove U.S. and other coalition forces broke a cardinal rule of international law — handing over terror suspects when they had good reason to believe the detainees would be tortured.

[...]

Lawyers say the once-secret logs stand apart from other reports about the Iraqi security agencies because the accounts of mistreatment are recorded — and sometimes corroborated — by the Americans themselves.

"It's not as if, if we didn't have these documents, we wouldn't know that torture was widespread," said Matthew Pollard, who works as a legal adviser for Amnesty International, a human rights group which repeatedly warned that abuse was widespread in Iraq. "What's new is confirmation — in their own documents — that they didn't dispute that."

Phil Shiner, of U.K.-based Public Interest Lawyers, which represents some 130 Iraqi civilians who allege ill-treatment by Britain's armed forces, said the law is unambiguous.

"If a state knows that there's a real risk that a person will be tortured by another state, they simply cannot transfer that person to the other country's custody," he said.

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"These documents provide additional evidence for why victims of torture should have their day in American courts," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the New York-based American Civil Liberties Union.

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[Click here to read the rest of this article from the Associated Press]

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