Nothing ever justifies torture and execution

I WISH to express my shock and disgust at your editorial on the assassination of Osama bin Laden by US special forces.

Your editorial justifies torture and extra-judicial execution on the grounds that anything less ”would have been the kind of capitulation that brings civilisations to an end”. In fact the use of torture and extra-judicial execution undermine western values far more than a thousand bin Ladens. The US, the EU and NATO proclaim the superiority of western democracy and the rule of law. Yet when they perceive western democracy to be under threat they jettison its core values.

Following the Second World War, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted. The declaration prohibits torture and states that everyone charged with a criminal offence was entitled to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal. The Declaration was adopted in 1948 when the wounds of that war were still fresh. When the surviving leaders of Nazi Germany were captured, they were put on trial. Despite the enormity of their crimes and the fact that they so blatantly disregarded the rights of their millions of victims, the Allies ensured that the accused were given fair trials. Has western democracy become so enfeebled since then that it can now disregard what it claims as its historic gift to humanity?