Britain, France and Germany use foreign intelligence obtained through torture in the fight against terrorism, a new report from Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.
The use by three heavyweight European powers of information from secret services in countries that routinely rely on torture was damaging the reputation of the entire European Union, said the rights group.
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Berlin, Paris and London should be working to eradicate torture, not relying on foreign torture intelligence," said Judith Sunderland, Western Europe researcher for HRW.
"Taking information from torturers is illegal and just plain wrong."
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Torture is prohibited under international law, at anytime and anywhere. No exceptions are allowed. Yet the UK, France and Germany are engaged in ongoing counterterrorism cooperation with foreign intelligence services in countries that routinely use torture.
These European governments use foreign torture information for intelligence and policing purposes.
And the rules in each country meant to keep torture evidence out of the courts - including foreign torture evidence - don't work because the burden falls on defendants to prove the information was obtained under torture, a nearly impossible task. ( good ol' "national security")
In Human Rights Watch's new report,
No Questions Asked: Intelligence Cooperation with Countries that Torture, we argue that uncritical use of foreign torture information violates the duty of all countries under international law to prevent and eradicate torture worldwide.
French, German and UK intelligence services say they cannot always know the sources and methods used to obtain information abroad."
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