Murder In Samarkand – Document 6 – Michael Wood memo of 13 March
Preface
After my protests at our obtaining intelligence under torture, I was astonished to be called back to London for a meeting on 8 March 2003 at which I was told that torture intelligence was legal, and that Jack Straw and Sir Richard Dearlove, Head of MI6, had decided that in the “War on Terror” we should, as a matter of policy, obtain intelligence got by torture by foreign intelligence services.
At the meeting it was agreed that Sir Michael Wood, the Foreign Office’s chief legal adviser, would put in writing his view that we were committing no offence by obtaining torture intelligence. This minute is that legal assurance.