acts.”128 He has characterized intelligence services in Yemen, Turkey and Syria as “friends” from whom the DCRI receives valuable information.129 France has not experienced the same public debate or media scrutiny of contemporary counterterrorism intelligence cooperation and torture as have Germany and the UK. However, the 2007 trial of five French former Guantanamo Bay detainees trained the public spotlight on the interrogations conducted in the US detention facility by French intelligence officers. The presiding judge in the trial adjourned the case after revelations that DST officers had interrogated French detainees at Guantanamo Bay in 2002 and 2004, but had not shared the results of those interrogations with the defense according to the rules of disclosure. The lower court’s conviction of the five accused was overturned on appeal. As discussed in more detail below, that appeal was later reversed by a higher court and a fresh appeal ordered. The government’s 2006 White Paper on Domestic Security against Terrorism, which lays out France’s counterterrorism strategy, devotes only a small section to international cooperation focusing on multilateral fora for information-sharing. There is no mention of torture at all, and human rights and the rule of law are referred to only in the conclusion: The challenge is to ensure the effectiveness of counter-terrorism methods while complying with the rule of law. To deviate from this course would in fact be to play into the hands of global terrorism...By respecting the rule of law, the fight against terrorism gains legitimacy. It therefore gains effectiveness, from a long-term strategic perspective. Our country will continue to travel down this narrow path.130 Guidelines Human Rights Watch was unable to ascertain whether French intelligence services have written or oral guidelines regarding information-sharing arrangements with services with records for torture, appropriate evaluation of information where there are reasonable grounds for believing it may have been obtained under torture, or participation in 128 Patricia Tourancheau, “Un risque de récidive terroriste par rapport à 1995,” Libération, October 8, 2007, http://www.algeria-watch.org/fr/article/mil/groupes_armes/recidive_terroriste.htm (accessed September 18, 2009). 129 Herve Gattegno, “Comment on traque les terroristes,” Lepoint.fr, March 12, 2009, http://www.lepoint.fr/actualitessociete/2009-03-12/comment-on-traque-les-terroristes/920/0/324944 (accessed September 18, 2009). 130 White Paper on Domestic Security against Terrorism, official English translation, La Documentation Francaise, March 2006, http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/rapports-publics/064000275/index.shtml (accessed September 18, 2009), pp. 123124. “No Questions Asked” 46