Ministerial Memo- role of RUC in interrogation of "Hooded Men"

Memo outlining the details of a meeting between the Secretary of Sate for Northern Ireland and the Minister of State, the General Officer Commanding (Army), Private Under Secretary, Chief of General Staff and Chief of Defence Staff dated 20th October 1971. 

Discussion of how to get around the difficulties that the interrogations were carried out by RUC Special Branch, not the British Army, who took a "support role."

"The GOC said that he had certainly encouraged the RUC to adopt in interrogation methods advocated by the JSIW (Joint Services Interrogation Wing) in preference to the RUC's own rather cruder traditional methods."

"(T)he British Government would probably take the line that the techniques in question were those which had been used in all the other emergencies in recent years; that they had been taught by the Joint Services Intelligence Wing to the RUC; and that they had been used in Northern Ireland with the broad knowledge and the approval of HMG. He (the Secretary of State) did not see how it would be possible to avoid saying that the actual interrogation was conducted by the RUC."

 

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DEFE 24 968 Letter from APS Secretary of State to PS Minister of State 20 Oct 1971.pdf724.74 KB