“If torture evidence is allowed to be used at trial, it not only encourages
and legitimises the use of torture of suspects and of witnesses, it leads to
grossly unfair trial, because someone will really say anything if they are
being tortured to make it stop, and that evidence is just really not
reliable.”
Qatada, who was born in 1960 near Bethlehem, then part of Jordan and now of
the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is being held in Long Lartin prison in
Worcestershire.
Never formally charged with an offence, he has been in and out of custody and
been held under a form of house arrest since he was first detained under
anti-terrorism laws in 2002.