February 8, 2011

PRESS RELEASE
For immediate use

Dr Bill Wilson MSP (SNP), has lodged a motion in the Scottish Parliament welcoming the "Preliminary Bush Torture Indictment", a move which "could serve as a basis on which to prepare country- and plaintiff-specific indictments against George W. Bush for condoning the use of torture in the form of waterboarding" and which has reportedly already forced the former US president to cancel a trip to Switzerland for fear of prosecution.

Dr Wilson said, "The former president of the USA has stated clearly that he supported waterboarding. The UK, a long-term sidekick in that country’s bloody foreign ventures, should condemn and prosecute such torture, not use dodgy information gathered this way. I have no doubt, from evidence provided by Craig Murray and others, that the UK has not only used information extracted under torture, it has also effectively collaborated in it by facilitating extraordinary rendition.

"As I have said before, torture does not protect lives but simply ensures that the victim provides whatever 'evidence’ is required by the torturer. Top US interrogator Ali Soufan is on record as saying, 'When they are in pain, people will say anything to get the pain to stop. Most of the time, they will lie, make up anything to make you stop hurting them. That means the information you're getting is useless.’

"The use of torture can only increase hatred and violence, not reduce it, and I support the Bush Torture Indictment and hope that if the USA will not prosecute Bush under the Convention Against Torture then the Indictment movement will at least prevent him ever leaving the USA.

"This should also be applied to UK leaders who were complicit in torture. A certain Anthony Charles Lynton Blair must surely have questions to answer in this regard."


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