Senior British judges have clarified, for the first time, the legal limits on how far the UK's intelligence agencies can cooperate with foreign partners accused of torture, ruling that UK officials must not play any active role in encouraging or facilitating it.
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), chaired by Lord Justice Singh and Lord Boyd of Duncansby, examined whether MI5, MI6, GCHQ and the Ministry of Defence were complicit in the torture of two men held by the CIA between 2002 and 2006.
The tribunal concluded that the agencies acted within their legal powers but used the judgment to draw a clear line between lawful intelligence sharing and unlawful complicity in torture.
“There is nothing unlawful in principle if the Respondents receive information which has been obtained by the torture of a detainee by the authorities of another state,” the judges ruled.
“But they must not do anything actively to encourage the obtaining of information by torture, for example by providing questions to be asked in circumstances where they are aware, or ought reasonably to be aware, that torture is being used.”
