my noble and learned friends, Lord Hope of Craighead and Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, that SIAC should ask itself whether it is established, by means of such diligent inquiries into the sources as it is practicable to carry out, and on the balance of probabilities, that the information relied on by the Secretary of State was obtained under torture. LORD CARSWELL My Lords, 146. The abhorrence felt by civilised nations for the use of torture is amply demonstrated by the material comprehensively set out in the opinion of my noble and learned friend Lord Bingham of Cornhill. While it is regrettably still practised by some states, the condemnation expressed in all of the international instruments to which he has referred is universal. Some of these adjure states to do their utmost to ensure that torture does not take place, while others urge them not to admit in evidence in any proceedings statements obtained by the use of torture. 147. The objections to the admission of evidence obtained by the use of torture are twofold, based, first, on its inherent unreliability and, secondly, on the morality of giving any countenance to the practice. The unreliability of such evidence is notorious: in most cases one cannot tell whether correct information has been wrung out of the victim of torture – which undoubtedly occurred distressingly often in Gestapo interrogations in occupied territories in the Second World War – or whether, as is frequently suspected, the victim has told the torturers what they want to hear in the hope of relieving his suffering. Reliable testimony of the latter comes from Senator John McCain of Arizona, who when tortured in Vietnam to provide the names of the members of his flight squadron, listed to his interrogators the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers football team, in his own words, “knowing that providing them false information was sufficient to suspend the abuse”: Newsweek, November 21, 2005, p 50. 148. The moral issue arises most acutely when it is established from other evidence that the information obtained under torture appears in fact to be true. Should the legal system admit it in evidence in legal proceedings (where as a matter of law such hearsay evidence may be -79-