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E350/8
derived from ill-treatment was ultimately obtained from another, untainted source, the ECtHR
considered the proceedings to be fair. 132
67. The Inter-American Court for Human Rights (IACtHR) has reached a different
conclusion, stating that "excluding evidence gathered or derived from information obtained
by coercion adequately guarantees the exclusionary rule.,,133 In that case, the IACtHR did not
fmd occasion to apply the exclusionary rule to derivative evidence since the evidence in
question consisted of confessions made by the victims directly subject to torture or illtreatment.
134
Considering that the IACtHR did not cite any supporting authority for the
proposition that the exclusionary rule encompassed derivative evidence, and that since the
issue did not arise on the facts it was addressed only in obiter dictum, the Trial Chamber does
not consider the IACtHR's ruling to be persuasive in this case.
68. The Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa has also held that the exclusionary rule
encompasses evidence that is derived from torture, concluding that "[i]n the long term, the
admission of torture-induced evidence can only have a corrosive effect on the criminal justice
system. The public interest, in my view, demands its exclusion, irrespective of whether such
evidence has an impact on the fairness of the trial.,,135 Nonetheless, the judge in that case
acknowledged that derivative evidence is not categorically excluded and that such evidence
may be admissible if it could have been obtained from a source independent of the torture or
where it would have been discovered inevitably.136 The Trial Chamber likewise considers that
a categorical rule excluding evidence derived from evidence obtained by torture or illtreatment would be over-expansive.
69. In the absence of consistent international jurisprudence, the Trial Chamber finds that an
international standard concerning the use of evidence derived from torture has not yet been
established.
70. For these reasons, the Chamber finds that a broadening of the scope of the exclusionary
rule is not supported by the preparatory work of the CAT or consistent jurisprudence at the
Giifgen v. Germany, paras 178-187.
Cabrera Garcia and Montiel Flores v. Mexico, para. 167.
134 Cabrera Garcia and Montiel Flores v. Mexico, paras 134, 170.
135 Mthembu v. the State, (379/2007)[2008] ZASCA 51 (10 April 2008)("Mthembu v. the State"), para. 36; A
United States District Court likewise held that evidence derived from a suspect of a terrorist bombing in
Tanzania which was obtained by "extremely harsh interrogation methods" and in the absence of counsel must be
excluded from the proceedings. See u.s. v. Ghailani, 743 F. Supp. 2d 242 (S.D.N.Y. 2010) conviction affd u.s.
v. Ghailani et al., 733 F.3d 29 (2 nd Cir. 2013).
136 Mthembu v. the State, paras 33, 35 ..
I32
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Decision on Evidence Obtained through Torture, Public, 5 February 2016
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