Flutterby™! : Torture subject's confession admissable 2010-08-12 18:33:01.427226+00

Torture subject's confession admissable

2010-08-12 18:33:01.427226+00 by Dan Lyke 2 comments

U.S. military judge rules confessions gained from tortured detainee are admissable.

In May hearings, a man identified as Interrogator 1 said in testimony that he threatened Mr. Khadr with being gang-raped to death if he did not co-operate. That interrogator was later identified as former U.S. Army Sergeant Joshua Claus. He has also been convicted of abusing a different detainee and has left the military.

I think it is important to note that the argument for allowing the evidence is that it wasn't obtained during those particular torture sessions, but this sounds like a really thin line, and the sentencing a torture victim life imprisonment for things they may or may not have done at 15 years old in a war situation is not exactly the way to win hearts and minds.

More in this article. Via a whole bunch of places, including this blog entry via Shawn.

Yeah, presumably there's a fine line that the judge is walking, but it sure seems to me like once you even threaten the subject with torture, all subsequent testimony is questionable, even if it's then extracted by the "good cop".

And obviously collecting information on such things is difficult, but I think all the reputable sources are pretty convinced that torture doesn't work, that even with something as simple as sleep deprivation, once you get someone into the cartwheeling pink elephants phase of sleep dep hallucinations you're going to get worse data.

#Comment Re: admissable confessions from tortured detainee made: 2010-08-18 01:59:05.087226+00 by: Kris De Vos

Haven't browsed here more recently, but this one piqued me a bit ... I can't help but wonder what good that might possibly do in many outcomes. Kinda reminds me of - was it 'Five Fingers' or 'Rendition' movies (or even 'The Siege et al).. ? Anyhoo, I recall a movie on this subject where the detainee ends up giving all the names of his mates on the football team from high school, or some such :-) Heh, get a nice high school reunion in a court of Law :-) ?

From logic's point of view, how can "evidence" transpired from such activity be considered constructive ?

I guess although it's "politically incorrect", alliances will somewhere have a need for some agility to avert tragedy from terrorism (mainly, I guess).