with. stories not exactly how the russian capital more than one hundred people killed them files of homes devastated as torrential rains triggered flash flooding in a popular southern russian resort area. libya's first election in half a century. in the capital contrasting sharply with boycotts and attacks across the country. and the deadline set for. saturday but the whistleblower remains in the safety of london embassy. to his plate. with more news stories when hall phenomenon the mean time the don't secrets of america's most controversial prison camp as we talk to british lawyer who's been at the heart of

some of the cases of abuse in guantanamo. today i'm joined by philip sands professor international or university college london and author of torture team and investigation into what's going on behind the closed doors of kuantan i'm obey mr fans thanks for speaking to r.t. so what torture techniques are interrogation techniques of actually being used at one time well it's pretty well established now. what emerged they adopted in the autumn of two thousand and two in the us department of defense a series of eighteen techniques of interrogation arranged in three groups and the first group was. shouting and screaming. the second group upped the ante so to speak and included sleep deprivation the use of dogs to induce

fear. and then category three the worst of all included waterboarding and the use of water to induce misperceptions of suffocation that document emerged after the abu ghraib images emerged and i was interested to find out how a country which has turned its back against torture could have moved to adopt these techniques of interrogation so i began. roots of two thousand and five to begin to look more closely through a series of interviews of course united states on what had happened and what had been done by the biggest ration it was to spin a story which effectively said it started down at guantanamo there were a group of individuals down at one time over and it did then work its way up the system what i stablish was that that's not accurate what happened was that it had started at the top and then worked its way down with significant pressure from the

pentagon in particular people around the white house so the tone was very different from the one which the administration had spun how easy was it to uncover that truth i. began by knowing that i had to speak to people who had not previously spoken down at guantanamo and i focused on the lawyers and i began to approach a number of lawyers and once i had found one lawyer who was willing to speak with me who was a staff judge advocate down at guantanamo who was involved at the time back in two thousand and two once he had given me an account of what had happened i could then go to the next person and say well publicly it says this but i've now been told by this person who worked underneath you that this isn't that what happened would you care to comment on it and the door could then begin to open and what are the implications of your findings meaning you argue that some of these techniques equate to war crimes is that right well i mean i focused on the interrogation of

one individual a detainee number sixty three alleged to be the twentieth. september eleventh hijacker. mohamed al khatami saudi national and i focused in particular on what had happened to him in the period november two thousand and two to january two thousand and three i reached the conclusion without any real difficulty that he had been subject to techniques that amount to torture torture is an international crime whether called a crime against humanity or a war crime it's prohibited under international more the united states a party to an international convention that outlaws it and the bottom line of it is if you engage in torture as a state you are responsible and you are responsible to do a number of things and one of the things you have to do is you have to investigate and you have to investigate what happened and that has never fully occurred. even the administration of president obama has if you like turned its back on the

possibility of a proper investigation to ascertain who authorized what when precisely wasn't a few bad eggs it was people right up the top in. in fact the namely where president bush ultimately said he signed off on waterboarding and the that that happened in the summer of two thousand and two we now know it's pretty well established by a group of individuals with the president at the top don rumsfeld called him mr rice was involved in the process and various lawyers you know in the national security council and in the pardon of justice who signed off on waterboarding approved waterboarding gave their support to waterboarding and that to me was shocking so what i want to know was how could in particular lawyers who'd been to the finest law school in the world you know to harvard to do. georgetown terrific law schools how had they got themselves into a state that they were willing to sign off on techniques that amounted to them or

their answer i think there was a sense of intense pressure that the united states was under an unparalleled i don't think that's a justification or an excuse or a reason but there was a tremendous sense of pressure coupled with the fact that a number of the lawyers involved at very senior level had no real background in the subject of international or the protection of the right individual and were very ideological in their approach basically they saw their function as lawyers not as being to give independent legal advice but to give the president the tools to do what he want to do that's not the function of a lawyer in any society in any democratic society but surely waterboarding rings alarm bells with any lawyer it should have rung alarm bells and it did ring alarm bells in many parts what i established was that two of the major organs of government in united states were cut out of the process the military the upper

echelons of the military were cut out of the process by don rumsfeld general counsel jim haynes. as. and the state department was cut out of the process and the lawyers at the state department and the lawyers and the department of defense and the military lawyers the career military lawyers know better than anyone that is in the united states' interest not to engage in this kind of activity so they were caught over the process and instead you've got a group of ideologues brought in to give the president the tools to do what he wanted to do irrespective of whether there was a reasonable argument it was all for naught which individual moment and the investigation would you say shocking most when i was speaking with the folks who were down at guantanamo i discovered and my book actually broke the story that one of the influence that was in the autumn of two thousand and two was a television program called twenty four which is a t.v.

program about the use of torture which promotes the idea really that torture works it produces results it's a sensible way to proceed and one of the people that are interviewed on beaver confirmed to me actually unexpectedly because i hadn't really asked a question. she just said that twenty four was a big influence and it created an environment and so you began to see that. the connection between popular cultural t.v. programs and what people do that was shocking so is there any chance those responsible for went on at guantanamo bay well actually be held to account there's already some degree of accountability i mean there's a group who are known as the bush six the six main lawyers at the top of the bush administration the former attorney general alberto gonzales the former department defense lawyer jim haynes some of the public justice lawyers john you jay bybee it's very difficult to know set foot outside the united states now there's every

possibility that they could be subject to questioning if they were to set foot outside the united states and there's some degree of accountability but my position is this is a breach of law this is potentially a crime and you need a criminal investigation and that has not happened and there's no indication that it will but what about former president bush is there a chance he could actually be charged with war crimes i mean president bush has rather brazenly given the series of interviews in which you know he says waterboarding is right why did i do it again dick cheney said the same thing and has taken responsibility for it and that's had certain consequences in the sense that some of his international travel has been limited he was due to go last year to switzerland that didn't happen he said because there were questions there can be protests when he's gone to canada. who knows what will happen over time you know one of the things that i was involved with many years ago was the case of pinochet . that was of course a different time

a different scale but it took twenty five years for the wheels of justice to sort of creak into motion and one day visiting london he was arrested and so these things take time you don't know when these things are going to produce results or what's going to happen and you know hangs question of responsibility hangs in the hearing on the other. matters now saif gadhafi trial libya's recently announced that the trial will go ahead in libya under their laws but given what happened to his father surely there are concerns over libya's ability to actually hold a fair trial i mean i think there are concerns about. liberation of a country which over the past four decades has come to be associated with the high standards of criminal justice so i think it's reasonable to conclude that there are problems saif gadhafi has been indicted internationally i think there are good arguments on trying him in libya or trying him at the international criminal court

but if he's tried in libya the proceedings have to meet minimum international standards that can be done in a variety of ways but you can't have summary justice but since the arrest warrant was actually issued by the international criminal court then surely there isn't any actual legal framework for libya to hold the trial international criminal court works on a basis of a principle called complementarity. the i.c.c. the international court in the hague steps in if justice is not done locally so if justice is not done locally there been there has to be an international trial the libyans can demonstrate to the international criminal court that they can meet the new mishmash terms as they're free to try domestically but i think they're going to have to show to the international criminal court judges that they meet those international standards and i suspect saif gadhafi himself would be rather happy of being tried in the hague where he knows he's going to get in the right and of course he's not going to get the death penalty you've also written extensively

about the iraq war the legal issues surrounding that now do you see any similarities between the run up to what happened then and what's happening now in the standoff between iran and the west iraq went very wrong i think we know it went very wrong and there are very few people in this country in the united kingdom who are now really want to stand up for iraq on policy grounds and. even fewer on legal grounds i focused on it as a legal matter was not in my view authorized by the security council he did not meet international legal requirements and it was therefore i'm in the eagle. war but i think lessons have been learnt from that experience we saw some of that in relation to libya we saw that the security council did adopt a resolution russia and china did not return a resolution permitting some use of force question as to whether they exceeded the mandate the bit about not but there was a security council resolution iran is working its way through the security council

. who knows which way it will but i suspect the lesson of iraq is such that it will be very difficult to imagine the kind of coordinated military response with a large number of countries involved a lot iraq in the case of iran in the absence of proper security council authorization for that sounds thank you thank you very much. oh that. looks a little blue. that's

the. perfect. little. misleading good. amount of vitamin a very little of the.

top stories this on our team or the hundred people killed and thousands of homes devastated as torrential rains triggered flash flooding in a popular southern russian resort area. libya's first election in half a century gets up to a turban start with cheers in the capital contrasting sharply with boycotts and attacks across the country. and a deadline set for june in the sun his extradition to sweden expires in just a few hours but the whistleblower remains in the safety of acquittals london embassy waiting for to his side i'm playing. up about the news team with warner stories fourteen fifteen minutes from now in the meantime the latest action in the world of sports with. hello and welcome to this is sport on arts are you with me or mine cost for plenty

of news up ahead but first the headlines. given five serena williams holds all pogany as caravans go to clinch her fifth were built on crown and her fourteenth grand slam title all over all. while for rory flying the formula one leader for non-zero along those seals his first goal of the season to stake a claim for a second straight victory after a success in the netherlands last month. and stunning stoner of reigning multitude be champion casey stoner secures the second goal in a row after prevailing in qualifying for the german grand prix. but let's start with tennis where serena williams has claimed her fifth one of the crown after edging against her advance in three sets the american breezed through the first set six one but the match was halted after that due to rain delay plays in the post favor as she took the second seven five williams came back strong in the decider so

it at sixty two and the title the thirty year old smashing that souls of all seventeen aces in the process it was serenus fourteenth grand slam title however right basco who felt under the weather ahead of the final is the first ever pole to reach a grand slam decider and the twenty three year old will rise to a career high second in the new w t a rankings to be released on monday. and over in the men's game project federer could return to the top spot for the first time in over two years if he beats and murray in the men's final on sunday federer overcame current world number one and defending champion about job creation four sets the victory also keeps the swiss on course for a record equalling seventh wimbledon crown beat sampras the only man to have achieved that number of better things. incompetence. is supposed to win the title so i won a match you go nowhere there but still it's always nice being someone like novak who's so well here last year and the last couple of years and we've never played on

grass so it was over. a big occasion and. these matches only help my confidence i hope i can use them for the fines well murray admits facing federal will be a huge challenge murray became the first briton in seventy four years to reach the final after beating freshman. in four sets the local favorite got off to a flier taking the first set six three and the second six for however some god then started hitting in the third and got a setback after that it was pretty even with murray eventually coming through seven five federer's next for the world number for those still after his maiden major title and knows he's up against one of the best ever grass court players. but it's a great show. me no one. probably knows to expect to win the match but one that you know of. but

i mean if you would record here over the past ten years or so. it's been been incredible. now fernandez all along though is taking his first position in almost two years after prevailing at the rain delayed qualifying for the british grand prix the ferrari man who won the race last year was in less than the hundreds of a second faster than mark webber while living legend. walker and suits on defending champion sebastian vettel will start from the second row on the grid rush as it's out of control for rice located around finished in a disappointing nineteenth place while a long is the only driver to have taken victories in eight races so far this season and the twice former champion is twenty points clear of webber and that's all but he knows sunday's race could be a tricky one. nearly two years for a long time. to go to. with.

the qualifying use probably one of the less for qualifying so every year. few loves the motor but before. the start of the. well arraign was also a factor as depending mostly g.p. champion and joint leader casey stoner took his fourth goal of the season ahead of the german grand prix the australian edged out america's ben spies while stoner's honda teammate damage control so was third fastest and will complete the front row cal crutchlow and co-leader jorge lorenzo will start from fourth and fifth respectively lorenzo out to prove a point after the spaniard crashed out early in the dutch grand prix last week but stoner is not to be taken lightly. i said to me that we wait for the last ten minutes and then go out there and say we could do and we went out there with you know ten eleven minutes ago. basically just try to win the toss up stuff and some

lap times down as the track was drawing and you know tom did well enough that you know by the end they were able to do our best you know right at the last in pole position so we're pretty happy and after a difficult session you know it was not going to stay with motor sports and russia's most grueling rally silk way has got underway as more than one hundred competitors set off from moscow's iconic red square for a weeklong drive through the country this is the fourth edition of the insurance events their roots is more than four thousand kilometers long and will take the drivers to sow the rush of the final stage is you in the blank sea resort town of get in jig outside of sochi next friday the region in the current hit by devastating floods with more than one hundred people reportedly killed while russia's come on steam are the perennial favorites for the overall title in the trucks category however last year's winner pray is also back to the time his title even though the czech has played down his chances following his recent injury.

happy to be you because my seems to be ok it will be my first after every krrish which i have lost you and i feel really ok and i hope so that we will be able to fly political if you lose your i'm never saying that we are going to we will do our best to be really in front and elsewhere at tyson gay has shown why he's one of the main contenders for the men's one hundred meters at this month's olympics the american winning the diamond league meeting in paris the line that was missing jamaican do all the same bolt and yohan blake the two fastest man in the world this year but gay got a confidence boosting win nonetheless getting the better of fellow american justin gatlin to finish with simon nine point nine nine seconds francis christophe lemaitre hung on for third. now with less than three weeks left before the stores all of those london olympics preparations are in full swing for the showpiece

events and that including the main gateway to the games heathrow airport well the first thousand volunteers for the games have arrived at heathrow some of the men and women here responsible for the meeting greeting and transporting athletes others will be helping out behind the scenes to make the olympic viewing experience hopefully pleasurable one for the spectators seventy thousand people from the u.k. and abroad aged from eighteen all the way up to eighty will make up the volunteer corps. extreme sports now because moscow has hosted a skateboarding competition aimed at discovering emergence out into the local hero open contest being just the first in a series of events to be held across russia because i think the top of has more. escape are exporting up all over the country the number of skateboarders are increasing dramatically however there are still very few professionals among them

but there was no end of amateur boarders all of them aged under twenty flocked to more schools famed gorky park to participate in the for a stage of the local hero conform to the us going to building is really developing and not only in moscow i've just returned from the world championships in from and there's a maze to see lots of borders and some pages but i streets of that and europe skaters are writing special parks while in russia great everywhere but. much improved was one of the best paid boarders in the country was on hand to judge the corps and it and said it was pleasantly surprised with the level of the amateur writers combinations of complicated tweaks made to look simple. six stages across russia and hundreds of contenders with a view to unearthing the best writers the country has to offer that it's now very hard for me to skate when i was going on here but when i reached a certain level of confidence it just became easier and i started to progress

desire is the biggest motivation and i see that and passion in the eyes of every young right and. sometimes it's still scary to skate but i overcome my fears my parents fully support me in my desire to become a professional writer it's my dream. i can petition like this and use big popularity giving a chance for young stars to shine and just maybe a sign of course to turn their hobby into something they can earn a living from. archie. and finally it's a guinness world records story with a twist and i've got to warn you what i've got to see please don't try it at home now you. you are watching the aptly named sultana bunker sporting champions extravaganza household appliances rarely make their way into history books but this one did jonathan look forward and throw in a washing machine four meters with few likely to even want to challenge that record

bludging from an eleven meter barrier into just thirty centimeters of water is something that's earned fifty year olds are in taylor a place among the greats while mcfarlane it wasn't done tossing things either as he threw a life human being some four points eighty seven meters not surprisingly that was the most popular event. and that's all the sport for now meanwhile don't forget that our youtube channel is available to you at any times and you can find it at r.t. sport news thank you for watching. welcome to the. audience technology innovation all the latest developments from around russia we've got the future covered. limited

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