judicial control over the intelligence services. It’s the judicial procedure that verifies the information that begins as intelligence...The origin of the intelligence is not important.”141 This approach, in which intelligence material is uncritically used for operational purposes in order to collect other kinds of evidence, embraces the possibility and legitimacy of using the fruits of the poisoned tree: information collected as a result of investigations prompted by statements obtained under torture. The October 2005 arrests of two individuals allegedly plotting terrorist attacks in Paris are illustrative. These arrests appear to have been based largely, if not entirely, on statements allegedly made by a man named M’hamed Benyamina while in the custody of the Algerian secret service, the Department for Information and Security (Departement du Renseignement et de la Securite, DRS). Emmanuel Nieto and Stéphane Hadoux spent one year in pretrial detention before being released on bail after Benyamina retracted his statements once brought before an Algerian judge. Nieto and Hadoux were convicted on terrorism-related charges in October 2008 after a trial that included seven other defendants and relied heavily on Benyamina’s statements. Benyamina, an Algerian residing in France, had been arrested in Algeria in September 2005 and held in illegal, arbitrary DRS detention for at least five months before being handed over to a judge.142 Benyamina reported later that Algerian security officers told him French authorities had requested his arrest. A February 2006 article in the French daily newspaper Le Figaro raising concerns that France had “delivered” Benyamina to Algeria to make him talk under torture, cited two anonymous police sources acknowledging this French connection, while another source close to the case insisted that Algiers had its own reasons for being interested in Benyamina.143 Benyamina told Amnesty International that he did not want to talk about treatment in DRS detention as long as he remained in Algeria, for fear of reprisals. There is evidence, based on dozens of cases of torture and ill-treatment collected by Amnesty International between 2002 and 2006, to suggest that the DRS routinely arrests and holds terrorism suspects in incommunicado detention, with no access to a lawyer, where they are at particular risk of 141 Human Rights Watch interview with Philippe Maitre, prosecutor, February 27, 2008. 142 The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has classified Benyamina’s five months in DRS custody as illegal, arbitrary detention. UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Opinion No.38/2006 (Algeria), adopted November 21, 2006, A/HRC/7/4/Add.1, January 16, 2008. 143 Jean Chichizola, “France-Algerie: Paris soupconnee d’avoir livre un islamiste a Alger,” Le Figaro, February 13, 2006, http://www.algeria-watch.org/fr/article/pol/france/benyamina_livre.htm (accessed September 21, 2009). “No Questions Asked” 50