situation, the court could only evaluate the considerable volume of publicly available material suggesting that suspects had been subjected to torture. What the court was looking for was proof that the three witnesses in question had been tortured. The available material referred to only one of them and, while there was quite a lot of general information about the treatment of other suspected Al Qa’eda members, the court noted that none of the information was based on verifiable, named sources. Even taking account of the fact that the United States authorities had prevented the court from having access to more reliable sources, the court concluded that it had not been proved that torture had been used in the examination of the three witnesses, especially having regard to certain exculpatory elements in their statements. 141. The reasoning of the court, at pp 2329-2330, is instructive. It was under a duty to discover the truth and so the prohibition on the use of evidence had to remain the exception rather than being elevated into the rule. Therefore, the principle “i n dubio pro reo” did not apply and the facts justifying the prohibition had to be established to the court’s satisfaction. If substantial doubts remained, the possible violation had not been proved and the relevant statement could be used. The court therefore took the view that it was their duty to consider the summaries so as to investigate the facts of the case as fully as possible, but they would take the allegations into account in evaluating the evidence. 142. In my view the same factors as weighed with the Oberlandesgericht should weigh with the House. Once the House has held that statements obtained by torture must be excluded, the special advocates representing suspects such as the appellants are likely to raise the point whenever information appears to come from a country with a poor record on torture. Special advocates can indeed be expected to ask their clients about possible sources of information against them before they see the closed material. At the hearing the special advocates will present information provided by international organisations or derived from books and articles to paint the picture of conditions in the country concerned. But that cannot be a sufficient basis for SIAC to be satisfied that any particular statement has been obtained by torture. More is required. 143. Of course, the suspects themselves will not be able to assist the special advocate in finding more information during the closed hearing. But that is not so great a disadvantage as may appear at first sight, since it is in any event unlikely that they would be able to cast light on the specific circumstances in which a particular statement had been taken by -77-