Lawyers for 10 foreign terrorism suspects in Britain asked the Appeals Court Wednesday to throw out evidence gathered at U.S. prison camps, where they say Washington practices torture.
If allowed to proceed, the case could expose a rift between the two allies over the treatment of prisoners at U.S. bases in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere, after recent revelations of inhumane treatment of detainees by American soldiers in Iraq.
The 10 are among 17 foreigners declared “suspected international terrorists” by the British government and held indefinitely without charge under emergency powers passed after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Although evidence against them is secret, some of it is believed to come from U.S. interrogations of suspects in prison camps abroad. A secret tribunal has ruled that the British government can use evidence to justify holding them, even if it was obtained by torture.
But in an appeal at Britain’s Royal Courts of Justice, lawyers for the detainees said the ruling violates fundamental principles of British law.
In a written outline of their arguments, they asked for permission to present new evidence showing “the commission of torture...in U.S.-controlled camps.”
“It is an affront to the public conscience for states to rely in judicial proceedings on evidence that is derived from torture,” lawyer Ben Emmerson told a three-judge panel.
Britain’s anti-terrorism powers have become controversial since reports surfaced of mistreatment prisoners held by the United States outside normal judicial procedures.
One of the British detainees was freed in March when the government lost its first case. The secret Special Immigration Appeals Commission ruled that the man, known only as M, had been wrongly imprisoned and there was no evidence he was a threat.
Another prisoner was moved to house arrest on health grounds after the tribunal ruled that his detention without charge had driven him insane. Yet another was moved to a high security mental hospital where he tried to kill himself.
Under the powers, the British government can hold foreigners if it has “reasonable grounds” to suspect they might be a threat. To enact the measures it had to declare a formal “public emergency threatening the life of the nation,” allowing it to suspend rights guaranteed under European law.
Emmerson said he would seek to show that the secret tribunal did not look closely enough into the government’s case, or properly consider whether the suspects were actually part of the national emergency that justified suspending their basic rights.
The emergency powers have to be renewed by parliament, and a cross-party committee looking into them has concluded they should be scrapped immediately. But the government says it still needs them to fight terrorism.
The House of Lords, Britain’s highest court, is due to hear a challenge in October to the decision to suspend parts of the European Convention on Human Rights to pass the bills.
