Calls for penalties over CIA torture

Senior US officials found to have sanctioned the use of torture by the CIA should face the “gravest penalties”, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism said.

Ben Emmerson said individuals in George Bush’s administration who authorised the use of waterboarding and other so-called “enhanced interrogation” techniques were “as criminally responsible as those who actually perpetrated it”.

The international lawyer said officials and politicians involved in the programme could face arrest in any country because torture is a crime of universal jurisdiction.