U.S. practices at Guantanamo amount to "
utter lawlessness," according to one of Great Britain's most senior Law Lords.
One of Britain's most senior judges has condemned the US over the detention of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay.
Lord Steyn said conditions at Camp Delta were of "utter lawlessness", in a speech seen by Channel 4 News.
The Law Lord said the US was guilty of a "monstrous failure of justice" and challenged UK ministers to condemn the decision to hold any prisoners there.
He said detainees were "beyond the rule of law, beyond the protection of any courts and at the mercy of victors".
[snip]
"The procedural rules do not prohibit the use of force to coerce the prisoners to confess," he said.
Lord Steyn quoted officials as saying: "It's not quite torture but at close as you can get."
He said the quality of justice did not comply with international standards for fair trials.
"It may be appropriate to pose a question - ought our government to make plain publicly and unambiguously our condemnation of the utter lawlessness at Guantanamo Bay?"
This story was carried on BBC's Radio 4, among other foreign outlets, but (according to my search engine) it has been ignored by The New York Times and the Washington Post.
Apparently it is big news when the President makes a ceremonial, if unceremonious, visit to our one remaining ally, but it is not news that the United States is flouting the legal and moral traditions that the two countries once shared.