and the use of Special Advocates, Seventh Report of Session 2004-05, vol II, HC 323-II, Ev 1-12, 53-61). 59. My noble and learned friend Lord Hope proposes, in paragraph 121 of his opinion, the following test: is it established, by means of such diligent enquiries into the sources that it is practicable to carry out and on a balance of probabilities, that the information relied on by the Secretary of State was obtained under torture? This is a test which, in the real world, can never be satisfied. The foreign torturer does not boast of his trade. The security services, as the Secretary of State has made clear, do not wish to imperil their relations with regimes where torture is practised. The special advocates have no means or resources to investigate. The detainee is in the dark. It is inconsistent with the most rudimentary notions of fairness to blindfold a man and then impose a standard which only the sighted could hope to meet. The result will be that, despite the universal abhorrence expressed for torture and its fruits, evidence procured by torture will be laid before SIAC because its source will not have been “established”. 60. The authorities relied on by my noble and learned friends Lord Hope of Craighead and Lord Rodger of Earlsferry to support their conclusion are of questionable value at most. In El Motassadeq, a decision of the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg of 14 June 2005, the United States Department of Justice supplied the German court, for purposes of a terrorist trial proceeding in Germany with reference to the events of 11 September 2001, with summaries of statements made by three Arab men. There was material suggesting that the statements had been obtained by torture, and the German court sought information on the whereabouts of the witnesses and the circumstances of their examination. The whereabouts of two of the witnesses had been kept secret for several years, but it was believed the American authorities had access to them. The American authorities supplied no information, and said they were not in a position to give any indications as to the circumstances of the examination of these persons. Two American witnesses who attended to give evidence took the same position. One might have supposed that the summaries would, without more, have been excluded. But the German court, although noting that it was the United States, whose agents were accused of torture, which was denying information to the court, proceeded to examine the summaries and found it possible to infer from internal evidence that torture had not been used. This is not a precedent which I would wish to follow. But at least the defendant knew what the evidence was. -45-