British army accused of 'waterboarding' Irish prisoners in 1970sAFP: Evidence is emerging that the British army used waterboarding during interrogations on prisoners in Northern Ireland during the Troubles... The technique was allegedly used during at least one interrogation of a prisoner who was found guilty in 1973 of murdering a British soldier, a conviction largely based on an unsigned confession....
The jury did not believe his insistence that he made up the confession only because he had been held down by soldiers who placed a towel over his face and poured water over his nose and mouth to simulate drowning...
The Criminal Cases Review Commission has now referred Liam Holden's case to the Court of Appeals in Belfast after unearthing new evidence and because of doubts about the 'admissibility and reliability' of his confession... 'At trial Mr Holden gave compelling evidence that the alleged confession was obtained by the army using water torture,' his solicitor Patricia Coyle said. 'He spent 17 years in jail. He is looking forward to the court hearing his appeal.'
Irelandclick.com, 2006: Such shocking abuses bring back painful memories for New Lodge man Sam Millar. The former republican prisoner -- now a major selling author -- was the longest man on the blanket protest. He said watching the scenes from the horror camp were extremely distressing. 'When I look at what is going on in Guantanamo Bay and compare it with what happened to us, the parallels are frightening.'...
The grim reality of force feeding was described in detail by Sinn Féin's Gerry Kelly in an interview with the North Belfast News in 2004. 'They press their knuckles into your jaws and press in hard. The way they finally did force feed me was getting forceps and running them up and down my gums,' he said. 'I opened my mouth, but I was able to resist after that... They they tried -- there's a part of your nose, like a membrane and it's very tender -- and they started on that. It's hard to describe the pain. It's like someone pushing a knitting needle into the side of your eye. As soon as I opened my mouth they put in this wooden bit with a hole in the middle for the tube. They rammed it between my teeth and then tied it with cord around my head... The danger is that every time it happens you think you're going to die. The only things that move are your eyes.'
