By William Maclean, Security Correspondent
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain, France and Germany must shun the use of intelligence from torture by third-party allies, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday, arguing the practice was not only illegal but also self-defeating for counter-terrorism.
In the long term, abuses in the name of fighting militancy feed the grievances that fuel radicalisation and recruitment to terrorism, the organisation said in a report "No Questions Asked: Intelligence Cooperation with Countries that Torture".
"Berlin, Paris, and London should be working to eradicate torture, not relying on foreign torture intelligence," Judith Sunderland, senior Western Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement announcing the report's publication.
"Taking information from torturers is illegal and just plain wrong," it said.
The group said that both the use of such information, and the issuing of public statements affirming the legitimacy of doing so, "risks creating a market for torture intelligence".
"Efforts to prevent and eradicate torture lose their credibility if accompanied by a wink and a nod from European security services condoning torture in certain countries."
The rights body called on the three countries to publicly repudiate reliance on intelligence obtained from third countries through the use of torture and reaffirm the absolute prohibition on the use of torture evidence in any kind of proceedings.
SAVING LIVES PARAMOUNT, BRITAIN SAYS
Britain in March defended its use of intelligence obtained by foreign security agencies from terrorism suspects, even when it could not be sure how the informants had been treated.
Britain could not "afford the luxury" of only dealing with agencies that shared its standards, since intelligence obtained from others saved British lives, its foreign ministry said.
All three countries condemn torture as abhorrent and say it is never justified.
However Western officials often say they do not know the methods used to gain the information they get from intelligence cooperation, and probing too intrusively into that question could harm such relationships and curb the flow of information.
Human Rights Watch described this stance as a "no questions asked policy" at sharp odds with the responsibility of all states to work towards the eradication of torture under the 1984 U.N. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Also, it says, the stance is operationally flawed, as information obtained under torture is notoriously unreliable.
Human Right Watch said that France, Germany and the United Kingdom had demonstrated through policy statements and practice "a willingness (even eagerness) to cooperate with foreign intelligence services in countries like Uzbekistan and Pakistan -- notorious for abusive practices, both in general and against terrorism suspects in particular."
Uzbekistan has long rejected Western allegations of mass rights violations, saying its actions are in line with its laws.
Human rights activists regularly accuse Pakistan's military of extra-judicial killings and torture, charges the army denies.
The full report is available at http://www.hrw.org/node/91221
(Editing by Mark Heinrich)
