Britain treated terror suspects `inhumanely -'Taipei Times

Taipei Times - archives:

"Britain's detention without trial of foreign terror suspects subjected some of them to 'inhuman and degrading treatment,' the European watchdog on torture said in a hard-hitting report released on Thursday.

The Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), which visited the detainees in February 2002 and March last year, said detention without trial caused mental disorders in most of the detainees.

The conditions under which some detainees were held 'could be considered as amounting to inhuman and degrading treatment,' the report said.

Foreigners in Britain suspected of involvement in international terrorism were held at Belmarsh prison in London and Woodhill prison in Buckinghamshire, north west of London, and Broadmoor high-security hospital, west of the British capital in Berkshire, under legislation passed in 2001.

Last March they were freed from custody and put under control orders restricting their liberty after the law lords ruled that their detention breached human rights laws."