30 EL HASKI v. BELGIUM JUDGMENT only breach Article 6, however, if it has been shown that the breach of Article 3 had a bearing on the outcome of the proceedings against the defendant, that is, had an impact on his or her conviction or sentence (ibid., § 178). The Court is of the view that these principles apply not only where the victim of the treatment contrary to Article 3 is the actual defendant but also where third parties are concerned. It would point out in this connection that it has already had occasion to indicate in Othman (Abu Qatada) v. the United Kingdom (no. 8139/09, §§ 263 and 267, ECHR 2012), with regard more specifically to a flagrant denial of justice, that the use in a trial of evidence obtained by torture would amount to such a denial even where the person from whom the evidence had been thus extracted was a third party. 86. The Court examined the issue of evidence in the above-cited Othman case, where it examined, in particular, the question whether the deportation of a Jordanian national to his country of origin, where he claimed he would face conviction on the basis of statements by third parties that had been extracted under torture and would thus be the victim of a flagrant denial of justice, would entail a violation of Article 6 of the Convention. In response to the United Kingdom Government’s argument that the applicant had to establish “beyond reasonable doubt” that the evidence in issue had been obtained by torture, it took the view that it would be unfair to impose on the applicant a burden of proof that went beyond the demonstration of a “real risk” that the evidence in question had been thus obtained (ibid., § 273). The Court set out three reasons why it would be unfair to impose any higher burden of proof on the applicant. First, the Court did not consider that the balance of probabilities test, as applied by the majority of the House of Lords in the above-mentioned A. and others (no. 2) judgment, was appropriate, as that case had concerned not criminal proceedings but proceedings before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) to determine whether the Secretary of State’s suspicions that an individual was involved in terrorism were correct. It further noted that, in any event, the majority of the House of Lords in that judgment had found that the balance of probabilities test was for SIAC itself to apply and that an appellant before SIAC had only to raise a plausible reason that evidence might have been obtained by torture (ibid., § 274). Second, the Court did not consider that the Canadian and German case-law, which had been submitted by the United Kingdom Government (in particular the Singh and El Motassadeq judgments, cited also by the parties in the present case), provided any support for their position (ibid., § 275). Third, describing this as the most important factor, the Court found that it was necessary to have due regard for the special difficulties in proving allegations of torture. It emphasised that torture was uniquely evil, both for its barbarity and its corrupting effect on the criminal process. It was practised in secret, often by experienced interrogators who were skilled at