ASSURANCES from the United States that it does not use torture can no longer be relied on, a report by a group of MPs warned yesterday.
UK ministers have previously been willing to take at face value statements from senior American politicians, including the president, George Bush, that the US does not resort to torture, the House of Commons foreign affairs committee said.
But i
t said that stance should be dropped in the light of CIA admissions it subjected three detainees to "waterboarding", an interrogation technique which David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said in April this year amounts to torture.
This would have implications for the extradition of prisoners to the US as the UK is a signatory to a United Nations convention barring the return of individuals to states where they are at risk of torture.
During waterboarding, a detainee is bound to a board with their feet raised and cellophane wrapped around his head. Water is then poured on to his face. If uninterrupted, the process would lead to drowning.
In February, Michael McConnell, the US director of national intelligence, told a Senate committee waterboarding was "a legal technique used in a specific set of circumstances".
In March, Mr Bush vetoed a bill which would have banned the practice.
The full article contains 220 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
