[Shadow_Group] Fw: U.S. admits torture used in interrogations

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http://imagicke.blogspot.com/2004/12/us-admits-torture-used-in.html<http://imagicke.blogspot.com/2004/12/us-admits-torture-used-in.html>

U.S. admits torture used in interrogations
Results become evidence, though illegal in U.S court
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Evidence gained by torture can be used by the U.S. military in
deciding whether to imprison a foreigner indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
as an enemy combatant, the government concedes.

Statements produced under torture have been inadmissible in U.S. courts for
about 70 years. But the U.S. military panels reviewing the detention of 550
foreigners as enemy combatants at the U.S. naval base in Cuba are allowed to
use such evidence, Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Brian Boyle
acknowledged at a U.S. District Court hearing yesterday.

Some of the prisoners have filed lawsuits challenging their detention without
charges for up to three years so far. At the hearing, Boyle urged District
Judge Richard J. Leon to throw their cases out.

Attorneys for the prisoners argued that some were held solely on evidence gained
by torture, which they said violated fundamental fairness and U.S. due process
standards. But Boyle argued in a similar hearing Wednesday that the detainees
"have no constitutional rights enforceable in this court."

Leon asked whether a detention based solely on evidence gathered by torture
would be illegal, because "torture is illegal. We all know that."

Boyle replied that if the military's combatant status review tribunals
"determine that evidence of questionable provenance were reliable, nothing in
the due process clause (of the Constitution) prohibits them from relying on
it."

Leon asked whether there were any restrictions on using torture-induced
evidence.

Boyle replied that the United States never would adopt a policy that would have
barred it from acting on evidence that could have prevented the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks even if the data came from questionable practices like torture
by a foreign power.


Source: York Dispatch

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