CIA practices are nothing new – British Army used similar methods during the Troubles

While many of the torture practices said to have been employed by the CIA are disturbing, they are not new.

British troops on duty near Belfast in the early days of the Troubles. Picture: PA

In the early days of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the British Army used methods known as the “five techniques”, which included food and sleep deprivation and forcing suspects to listen to loud noise for extended periods of time.

In a now infamous case, 14 “hooded men” were selected for a deep interrogation in which they were beaten and subjected to the techniques in 1971.

Following a complaint from the Irish government, the men’s treatment was subject to an investigation by the European Commission.

In 1976 it found the British government to be guilty of torture and inhumane and degrading treatment.

Two years later the government won an appeal against the decision. The European Court ruled that while the five techniques amounted to inhumane and degrading treatment, they did not constitute torture.

The Irish government has recently asked the European Court of Human Rights to look again at the judgment.

The development came after an RTE television documentary uncovered new evidence which appeared to show Britain accepted that interrogation techniques used on the men amounted to torture.

Dublin’s decision to press for the judgment to be revised helped avert a high court action being brought by one of the hooded men, Liam Shannon, in an attempt to force the Fine Gael-Labour coalition to challenge the 1978 ruling.

In 2011, an inquiry into the death of Iraqi man Baha Mousa at the hands of the British Army blamed “corporate failure” at the Ministry of Defence for the use of banned interrogation methods. The father-of-two died two days after his arrest in 2003. He had 93 separate injuries.