UK link to torture jail's rules

[paineinthearse]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1418624,00.html

UK link to torture jail's rules

Army lawyer saw document on interrogation techniques

Jamie Doward
Sunday February 20, 2005
The Observer

A British official was involved in drafting rules permitting extreme interrogation techniques at Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad, centre of the controversy over the use of torture by US forces against Iraqi prisoners. Last night it emerged that the government has been forced to retract claims that no British military officer had seen or been involved with the crucial document allowing guards to subject detainees to interrogation methods including the use of dogs, sleep deprivation and stress positions, in breach of the Geneva Convention.

Last year the jail achieved notoriety when photographs emerged of guards forcing prisoners to strip naked and simulate sex acts. Other photographs showed detainees being set upon with dogs and beaten. The Armed Forces Minister, Adam Ingram, has admitted in a letter to a Plaid Cymru MP, Adam Price, that a senior British Army lawyer assigned to the coalition's legal department in Baghdad contributed to 'comments provided by his superior' when drafting the document.

It is not known if the officer supported or opposed the document, but the revelation raises serious questions about who in the Army's chain of command knew of the interrogation techniques being employed at Abu Ghraib and when. The British officer made a weekly report to his superiors and was also under a responsibility to alert them if he felt international law governing the treatment of detainees was being flouted.

'For the government to now admit that their earlier statement was incorrect and that a senior British lawyer had some role in the drafting process is very worrying,' Price said. 'The use of techniques such as sensory deprivation are illegal under British military law. It's against the Geneva Convention, too. The alarm bells should have been ringing. I would have expected the British chain of command to have been alerted to the Americans' practices.' The document, entitled Interrogation and Counter-Resistance Policy, was drawn up by the coalition's Combined Joint Task Force 7 (CJTF), which was in charge of supervising the interrogation of Iraqi detainees, and borrowed heavily from techniques employed at Guantanamo Bay. Signed off on 14 September 2003, the document underwent several drafts before being approved.

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