Britain, France and Germany must shun the use of intelligence from torture by third-party allies, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday, arguing the practice was not only illegal but also self-defeating for counter-terrorism.
In the long term, abuses in the name of fighting militancy feed the grievances that fuel radicalisation and recruitment to terrorism, the organisation said in a report "No Questions Asked: Intelligence Cooperation with Countries that Torture".
"Berlin, Paris, and London should be working to eradicate torture, not relying on foreign torture intelligence," Judith Sunderland, senior Western Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement announcing the report's publication.
"Taking information from torturers is illegal and just plain wrong," it said.
The group said that both the use of such information, and the issuing of public statements affirming the legitimacy of doing so, "risks creating a market for torture intelligence".
"Efforts to prevent and eradicate torture lose their credibility if accompanied by a wink and a nod from European security services condoning torture in certain countries."
The rights body called on the three countries to publicly repudiate reliance on intelligence obtained from third countries through the use of torture and reaffirm the absolute prohibition on the use of torture evidence in any kind of proceedings.
Britain in March defended its use of intelligence obtained by foreign security agencies from terrorism suspects, even when it could not be sure how the informants had been treated.
Britain could not "afford the luxury" of only dealing with agencies that shared its standards, since intelligence obtained from others saved British lives, its foreign ministry said.
All three countries condemn torture as abhorrent and say it is never justified.
This is the end. The final blood-soaked chapter of the genocide. It will be over soon....
