Barrel Strength

The mere mention of Gitmo, is sufficient to drive liberals into an emotional frenzy around the world.  Americans are repeatedly urged to consider the opinions of “enlightened” Europe and that is much more likely happen under the BHO administration.  Your correspondent agrees wholeheartedly with this approach given the following facts.

On Oct 1, 2002 in Frankfurt, Germany Deputy Police Chief Wolfgang Daschner contemplated the fate of  Magnus Gäfgen, a 27-year-old law student who was suspected of having kidnapped 11-year-old Jakob von Metzler, son of the banker Friedrich von Metzler.  In a memorandum, Daschner wrote: “We need to ascertain without delay where the boy is being held. While respecting the principle of proportionality, the police have an obligation to take all measures in their power to save the child’s life.”  He dispatched police inspector Ortwin Ennigkeit with the assignment to make Gäfgen talk — if necessary by threat of torture and to carry out the threat if Gäfgen was not otherwise forthcoming.  After shaking Gäfgen so violently that his head banged against the wall and hitting him in the chest hard enough to leave a bruise over his collarbone the information was obtained.  The article goes on to describe the subsequent course of events.

In June 2005, the child-murderer and law student Magnus Gäfgen lodged a complaint against Germany with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). In his complaint, Gäfgen accused Germany of having violated his rights under the European Convention on Human Rights and, more specifically, of having violated the prohibition on torture contained in Article 3 of the Convention.

On June 30, 2008, the European Court of Human Rights rejected Gäfgen’s complaint and cleared Germany of the charge of tolerating torture.  The Court found that the treatment to which Daschner and Ennigkeit subjected Gäfgen did not reach the threshold required to be considered as torture (§69). On the Court’s assessment, it did, however, constitute “inhuman treatment” (§70), which is likewise prohibited by Article 3. Nonetheless, the Court found that German judicial institutions had acted in such a way as to provide Gäfgen sufficient “redress” for the offense suffered and thereby, in effect, to nullify any violation of the Convention. According to the somewhat surreal reasoning of the Court, Gäfgen had been, but was no longer, a victim of “inhuman treatment” (§82). He had “lost” his “victim status.”….

ECHR explicitly found that one of the techniques Rumsfeld and Haynes rejected as too severe does not meet the threshold for being regarded as torture. Citing the Army’s “tradition of restraint,” Rumsfeld and Haynes refused to authorize threats of physical violence, as well as two other “Category III” techniques, “exposure to cold weather or water” and what has come to be known as “waterboarding.” (The only “Category III” technique that was approved was the “use of mild, non-injurious physical contact such as grabbing, poking in the chest with the finger, and light pushing.”) The Court, however, found that mere threats of violence, if they are not carried out, do not as such constitute torture. It came to this conclusion even while recognizing that Ennigkeit’s threats must have caused Gäfgen “considerable mental suffering” (§69). By the standards of the European Court of Human Rights, then, all less harsh measures should not be regarded as torture either.

Therefore your correspondent recommends immediate adoption of this European policy.