Peace activist awaits high court verdict

Maya Evans is challenging the role of the Government in the "horrible abuse" meted out during interrogations, said to include beatings, electrocution and whipping with rubber cables.

Miss Evans has been in the High Court fighting the judicial review for the past two weeks and her lawyers presented their closing arguments yesterday.

They claim the Government did not do enough to protect prisoners they handed over to the Afghan intelligence force, the National Directorate of Security (NDS) '“ a charge which the Secretary of State for Defence

Bob Ainsworth has strongly denied.

This week saw two days of closed evidence surrounding the role of MI6 in the treatment of the prisoners.

Miss Evans said: "We now know that British monitoring consists of asking a prisoner whether he has been tortured by the NDS when NDS guards are stood in the room.

"Now the NDS is denying access even for this. The evidence is clear that there is a very high risk of torture. This Government's complicity must stop."

And Daniel Carey, of Public Interest Lawyers, said: "The Government cannot continue to ignore the clear evidence of torture by this organisation. Its international human rights law obligations couldn't be clearer.

"As long as this woeful practice continues they are risking prisoners' lives and the reputation and criminal responsibility of British Forces."

Judges at the High Court will hand down their decision in the next few weeks.