“Torture is the weapon of the bully, the coward and the fool, and the US president’s record testifies that he is well qualified to speak on its behalf.”

John le Carré — The Times (August 17 2018)

David John Moore Cornwell — better known by the pen name John le Carré —  just threw his weight behind calls for a judge-led inquiry into British torture complicity. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

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During the 1950s and 1960s, David Cornwell worked for both the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service.

Cornwell, better known as John le Carré, was born in 1931. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Honorable Schoolboy, and Smiley’s People.

His novels include The Little Drummer Girl, A Perfect Spy, The Russia House, Our Game, The Tailor of Panama, and Single & Single. John le Carré lives in Cornwall.

The 85-year-old novelist wrote the following opinion piece published by The Times on August 17 2018.

Sir, We are told that the prime minister will soon tell us whether or not she is minded to authorise a judge-led inquiry into Britain’s complicity in torture that is being urged on her by such distinguished colleagues as Kenneth Clarke, David Davis and Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamden, among many others (report, Aug 11).

There is, as we must all admit, no question of whether Britain was an accomplice to America’s programme of rendition and torture. The rendition of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and his wife, conducted in 2004 with the active co-operation of MI6, is documented and publicly acknowledged by the government.

Mrs May herself has rightly described their treatment as “appalling”. The question now is to what extent and by whose authority such complicity occurred.

Meanwhile, the world is coping with an American president so wedded to untruth that he has declared, against a chorus of professional dissent, that torture “absolutely works”.

Torture is the weapon of the bully, the coward and the fool, and the president’s record testifies that he is well qualified to speak on its behalf. But in our country, and in every decent country in the world, torture is vile, useless, abhorrent and illegal.

The prime minister should authorise a judge-led inquiry into the extent of Britain’s involvement in this disgraceful crime.

John le Carré
Penzance, Cornwall

May urged to launch public inquiry into UK’s complicity in torture

REFERENCES

Torture Inquiry by John le Carré — The Times LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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John le Carré : Prime Minister Should Authorise Torture Inquiry