UN 'may use torture evidence to impose sanctions on terror suspects'
The United Nations may be relying on evidence obtained by torture when deciding whether to impose restrictive financial sanctions on al-Qaida suspects, a British UN official has warned.
Ben Emmerson QC, the UN's special rapporteur on counter-terrorism, has questioned the integrity of the security council's enforcement regime and the way it acquires its intelligence.
More than 300 people worldwide are on the committee's combined al-Qaida and Taliban sanctions list. Critics of the system warn that the same flaw is built into other punitive UN sanction regimes.
Emmerson's allegation supports claims made in British courts that information acquired by the former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's security forces and other notorious sources has been exploited to identify suspects. About only five suspects are believed to be subject to the sanctions in the UK. Once on the list, suspects seeking to prove their innocence find it exceptionally difficult to have their names removed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/nov/11/un-torture-evidence-terror-suspects