British torture base revealed

Posted by Jim on August 11, 2013

 The location of a secret camp used to torture 14 victims of internment,

long kept secret by the British government, has finally been exposed.

 The Pat Finucane Centre said it had found documents which show that the

location of the torture centre was at Ballykelly in County Derry, now a

British Army base.

 One of the so-called 14 ‘hooded men’ held there says further

investigation is needed into why the British government failed to reveal

its true location when it gave evidence to the European Court of Human

Rights (ECHR) in the 1970s.

 The 26-County government is also being asked to investigate why the

existence of the base was kept hidden for so long.

 In January 1978 the European Court of Human Rights found that the

British government was guilty of subjecting 14 men to the inhumane and

degrading treatment after they had been subjected to controversial deep

interrogation techniques. This included having had hoods placed over

their heads and forced to stand spread-eagled against a wall for seven

days with little or no food, water or sleep.

 It has now emerged that preparations for the use of deep interrogation

began six months before interment, when in April 1971, the British

Army’s Joint Services Interrogation Wing (JSIW) began training RUC

Special Branch officers in Belfast.

 The interrogations were to be conducted by Special Branch, with JSIW

officers providing ‘technical’ advice.

 On August 11 then Stormont Prime Minister Brian Faulkner authorized the

transfer of 12 detainees to a secret interrogation site, now known to be

Ballykelly, under the Special Powers Act.

 The deep interrogation was conducted by 20 RUC Special Branch officers,

12 JSIW advisers, and 26 RUC guards.

 Throughout the seven day interrogation the detainees, were hooded,

forced to constantly stand spread eagled against a wall, were deprived

of sleep, bread and water and subjected to ‘white noise’.

 Forty years on the 14 detainees have still not been officially informed

where they were interrogated.

 Jim Auld was a 21-year-old dental technician at the time he was interned

and subjected to the special interrogation techniques.

 “Officially they said I was made to stand up against the wall for 42 and

a half hours but that was nonsense. We were there against the wall

morning, noon and night for the seven days. There was no break at all.”

 Outlining how ‘white noise’ was used to disorientate the detainees, he

explained:

 “At the beginning there was a hissing sound in the background. To be

truthful in the beginning I hadn’t thought an awful lot of it, but after

a few hours it increased in volume and when you were standing against

the wall it became the centre of your world. It penetrated your brain

because you couldn’t think of anything else. It was a high pitch hissing

sound but it became all encompassing. It took everything. You couldn’t

think.”

 The use of deep interrogation techniques was only officially brought to

an end after one of the detainees, Paddy Joe McClean, succeeded in

smuggling out a note from Crumlin Road jail to Cardinal Conway, who

immediately flew to London and confronted Prime Minister Ted Heath.

 Following the allegations of torture the Dublin government took a case

to the European Commission on Human Rights, which found the London

government guilty of torture.

 That judgement was appealed by the British government and in 1978 the

European Court of Human Rights ruled that while the British government

was not guilty of torture, it had subjected the 14 interrogatees to

inhumane and degrading treatment.

 The use of torture is acknowledged as a low point in Britain’s

occupation in the north of Ireland, and its exposure marked a turning

point.

 Questioned whether he had ever fully recovered from the mental and

physical effects suffered during deep sensory interrogation at

Ballykelly, Mr Auld says:

 “I certainly haven’t got over it. There’s others who may be in a better

position. I have been able to control it.

 “The difficulty is that every year from it happened there is an

anniversary there and it brings back very painful memories. This is the

only time of year I’m willing to talk about it and for many, many years

I wouldn’t talk about it because it was too painful.

 “It stressed me very much for a long period of time. As the years have

gone on I’ve learned to control that stress and one of the main reasons

why I would talk about it now is to expose the British government for

what they’ve done on its citizens, but also to expose what other

countries, particularly the Americans, have been doing because they’ve

been doing exactly the same thing. They may have changed some of the

techniques but the effects on individuals are exactly the same,

particularly people who they’ve kept in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib.”

 

FIVE TECHNIQUES

 

In a confidential memo, dated October 1971, the British army’s Director

General of Intelligence, Harold J. Maguire, states that the five

techniques of sensory deprivation interrogation used against the

Ballykelly detainees had previously been used against prisoners in

British camps in Malaysia, Kenya, Cyprus, Brunei and Korea.

 Despite Ballykelly being the only location where the detainees were

subjected to deep interrogation methods, its use was never disclosed to

the ECHR. It was long believed that the men were held at Palace

Barracks near Holywood and Ballykinler in County Down.

 Another memo marked ‘For UK Eyes Only’, outlines the public defence

which the government should take to defend its use of hooding, white

noise, sleep, food and sensory deprivation on the detainees.

 One senior army officer absurdly claimed that most of the detainees had

wanted to keep hoods _on_ their heads for seven days “quite voluntarily”

and described the sensory deprivation suffered by the detainees as an

advantageous “spin-off”.

 Despite previous assurances that the detainees had been allowed regular

sleeps during the seven day interrogations, the confidential papers

instead reveal that in “general” it was only when a prisoner had begun

“cooperating” with interrogators that was he allowed to sleep.

 “However if a man was giving a lot of information and there was more to

come the interrogator would want to continue probing rather than let him

off the hook at that stage. In some cases an interrogatee could last for

a couple of days without sleep.”

 The British memos confirm six of the detainees were forced to spend in

excess of 30 hours “on the wall” – standing hooded, in a stress position

against a wall. One detainee spent 49.5 hours “on wall”.

 The uncovered evidence contradicts information provided to the European

Commission for Human Rights. Such information was also not disclosed to

either the Compton or Parker inquiries of the Westminster parliament.