The latest military guidelines on interrogating terrorists and other prisoners are so stringent that it makes interrogation pointless, write Robert Mendick and Tim Ross in the Daily Telegraph (“Don’t yell at terrorist suspects, soldiers told”).
British soldiers have “lost their capability” to interrogate terrorist insurgents because of strict new rules on questioning that even ban shouting in captives’ ears, military chiefs have warned.
The rules — detailed in court papers obtained by The Telegraph — also prevent military intelligence officers from banging their fists on tables or walls, or using “insulting words” when interrogating a suspect.
… “The effect of the ambulance-chasing lawyers and the play-it-safe judges is that we have got to the point where we have lost our operational capability to do tactical questioning. That in itself brings risks to the lives of the people we deploy.
“These insurgents are not nice people. These are criminals. They behead people; they keep sex slaves. They are not normal people.”
Lord West, the former First Sea Lord and national security adviser, said: “We have gone too far in letting people take us to court.
“While these insurgents are chopping people’s heads off and raping women, the idea they can take us to court because somebody shouted at them is ridiculous.”
In an interview with The Telegraph, Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, voices his concern about the legal scrutiny on British troops. He says he is gravely concerned about the rising cost of legal cases “that turn out to be completely spurious”. He added: “What’s important for us is to understand the legal scrutiny that we are under all the time now, the cases that are being brought sometimes spuriously by law firms representing people who claim they were wrongly detained.
