In today’s Irish Times (18 February 2020), there is a letter by Michael Lillis about Robert Daly, a psychiatrist who died recently. Daly had given evidence before the European Court of Human Rights in the ‘hooded men’ case – the claim by a number of suspected members of paramilitary organisations that they had been tortured.

In the letter, Mr Lillis describes how Robert Daly turned the trial:

Prof Daly was being cross-examined by the UK attorney general and other prominent British silks in the hectoring traditions of the Old Bailey. The tone began to change when Prof Daly explained that as a young psychiatrist in the US he had consulted for some years for the US Air Force who were training American military personnel who might be captured in combat to resist sophisticated forms of torture, including the “five techniques” that the Irish government alleged amounted to torture. 

He explained how knowledge of these “techniques” had originated with the debriefing by US experts of the crew of the US Navy vessel USS Pueblo which had been captured by North Korea in January 1968. 

During 10 months the captain and crew were subjected to various forms of torture, including the “five techniques”. Several suffered long-term psychological and physical damage. 

By now the hectoring had stopped and was replaced by an expectant silence from the commission members and the entire courtroom. Prof Daly produced irrefutable written evidence from US government sources of the transmission of the findings by the US medical and intelligence authorities on the impact on their victims of the North Korean techniques to their counterparts in the UK. 

He explained devastatingly how British medical and security experts had used these methods on the 14 “hooded men” knowing beforehand how damaging their effects could be, including possibly major damage to a victim’s nervous system. 

The British attorney general and his team made no attempt to refute any of this.”

The letter may be read here: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/robert-j-daly-and-hooded-men-case-1.4176511

For a summary of the ECHR’s findings, in the case, see here: https://www.lawteacher.net/cases/ireland-v-uk.php