OTHMAN (ABU QATADA) v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT 81 above). A fingerprint was not simply, as Mr Al-Khalili and Mr Najdawi suggested, a sign that the maker of a statement was illiterate, least of all when, in Abu Hawsher’s case, the case against him was that he had been reading the applicant’s books. 252. The applicant also submitted that any possible distinction between torture and ill-treatment (either in international law or in the Convention) was immaterial for two reasons. First, his allegation was that Al-Hamasher and Abu Hamsher’s ill-treatment was so severe as to amount to torture. Second, there was a breach of Article 6 whenever ill-treatment was inflicted in order to secure a confession and it was clear that Al-Hamasher and Abu Hamsher had been ill-treated for that reason. 253. The use of torture evidence was a flagrant denial of justice. The prohibition on the use of torture evidence was, in the applicant’s submission, part of the established international machinery through which the ius cogens prohibition on torture was expressed. This prohibition was enshrined in Article 15 of UNCAT and the case-law of this Court. The exclusionary rule in Article 15 had to be read in conjunction with Article 12 of the UNCAT, which imposed a duty to investigate wherever there was reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed. It was clear from the reports of United Nations bodies and NGOs (summarised at paragraphs 106–124 above) that the Jordanian Public Prosecutor failed properly to investigate torture allegations and, indeed, had not done so when those allegations were made at the applicant’s in absentia trials. Therefore, while he accepted he had not demonstrated on the balance of probabilities that evidence was obtained in his case by torture, he had demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that Jordan would not investigate the allegations which had been made in his case. 254. It was incorrect for the Government to suggest that Jordanian law was consistent with English law as to the standard of proof to be applied; the English law will not admit evidence in criminal proceedings until the prosecution can prove that the evidence was not obtained by torture (see Mushtaq at paragraph 138 above). Moreover, the view of the majority of House of Lords in A and others (no. 2) (see paragraph 136 and 137 above) was premised on the assumption that, in the United Kingdom, an independent court, SIAC, would conscientiously investigate any allegations that evidence had been obtained by torture. This assumption did not hold true for the Jordanian State Security Court. Before the State Security Court, the burden of proof fell on the defendant to prove a confession had been obtained by torture. This was unfair because it was not accompanied by some of the most basic protections against ill-treatment such as recording of questioning, limited periods of detention and access to lawyers or doctors. 255. Consequently, for these reasons, it was unfair to expect him to prove either beyond a reasonable doubt or on the balance of probabilities that the key witnesses in his case had been tortured.