"BACK ON THE TORTURE TRAIL"
Just over a year ago, reporter Martyn Gregory revealed British companies' involvement in international sales of electroshock equipments in Dispatches, a programme on the British TV Channel 4 (see FECL No.31: "Electro-shock weapons: the "torture trail"; No.36: "Television producer of "The Torture Trail" under criminal investigation"). "Back on the Torture Trail", a new programme by Gregory broadcast in March suggests that, a year later, the sales are going on as before.
Recent surveys of torture victims have confirmed electroshock as one of the most common methods of torture, and current examples of its use have been found in Serbia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Lebanon, Syria, Zaire, and China, to name but a few.
Electroshock devices are prohibited weapons in the UK. Possession of them without a licence carries the same penalty as illegally holding an AK47 machine gun - a five year prison sentence.
According to the manufacturers, the new pulsed variants of electroshock weapons were developed in the 1980s on the basis of biomedical research. In 1990, an independent survey by the British Forensic Science Service (FSS), commissioned by the Home Office examined the possible hazardous effects of a range of different electroshock devices on the human body.
Repressive states like the weapon because it leaves very few marks and affords convenient push button torture which can be taught as a standard operating procedure to soften up and terrify detainees. The FSS study also reported that modern pulsed electroshock batons are more powerful than the old fashioned cattle prods by nearly two orders of magnitude.
Business as usual
Despite the furore which greeted the first exposure of the UK Torture Trail, on his second expedition "Back on the Torture Trail", Gregory found that of the eight British "internal security" companies he contacted, only two were unwilling to quote for a new order of 300 electroshock batons. It was very much business as usual. Compass Safety International, of Salisbury; SDMS of Chelsea; Civil defence Supplies (CDS) of Wellingore; J & S Franklin and CCS of London all volunteered a quote on the supply of electroshock devices to Channel 4's fake company, "E. Lopez Associates" of Basle. The most enthusiastic companies featured in Gregory's new programme were not put off by the fact that the intended destination was Zaire. None of the companies featured bothered to check out Lopez Associates' bona fides. In fact they were faxing their quotations to a public fax machine at a railway station in Switzerland.
Getting around restrictions
Some of the companies warned the undercover team that it was illegal to sell electroshock batons in Britain but said they could "tranship" the weapons so they would never have to touch British soil. These companies were well rehearsed in getting around current UK restrictions. For example Dispatches was told by David Knights, SDMS's chairman that they and their South African Associates, had previously sold electroshock products around the world to countries including Libya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Angola, Mexico, Peru, Burma and Indonesia.
Another company offered to avoid export regulation, by selling the Dispatches undercover team 300 shock batons made by the Macoisa company of Mexico City at a cost of $25,000. Macoisa's boss, Alfredo Aguilla, told Gregory's undercover team he could export the 40,000 volt batons on behalf of his British client anywhere they chose. Aguilla told Martyn Gregory that bad human rights records were no problem.
Company denials despite filmed evidence
When Martyn Gregory confronted the companies which had quoted Lopez Associates, they denied what TV spectators could see and hear and claimed that they never have supplied or will supply electroshock equipment.
Government denials
The British Government too has consistently denied any knowing collusion with this trade. After Gregory's revelations in his first Dispatches programme in 1995, the then President of the Board of Trade, Michael Heseltine, said that Gregory had effectively made the story up. Gregory promptly took Heseltine to the High Court where he won an apology and £55,000 in libel damages.
Eight months after the "Torture Trail" was first shown, the Guardian reported that an electroshock baton export licence had in fact been issued for transhipping some devices via the UK. Yet, on 29 February, the Secretary of State for the Home Department confirmed that "No company has been granted authority under this section specifically in respect of electroshock weapons in the last two years."
We can anticipate the Government denying any further involvement in this trade, yet one of the starkest revelations of "Back on the Torture Trail" is that the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) was helping to distribute advice on electroshock sales whilst Michael Heseltine's Department was assuring everyone that the trade did not exist. The Association of Police and Public Security Suppliers (APPSS) report published in 1994 and 75 per cent funded by the DTI, advises companies where to sell electroshock weapons in the Gulf region, where torture is widespread.
"An enormous cover up"
No prosecutions of companies named in the programmes have followed as yet the broadcasts of the "Torture Trail". Commenting on the affair, Ann clywd, a Member of Parliament, said: "There's an enormous cover up going on and the government is deliberately dragging its feet. That is the conclusion I have come to after a year of asking questions."
Amnesty International is embarking on a worldwide campaign against the use of electroshock weapons. The Secretary General of Amnesty International, Pierre Sane, said: "It is not just good enough to prohibit the manufacturing of this equipment in the UK, or the sale or possession of this equipment in the UK. Legislation should also prohibit companies from engaging in offshore sale of this equipment."
Until then, effective control of this technology still relies on intrepid investigative journalism. In future, no dealer in electroshock equipment will be certain that his client is not working to expose him and this whole immoral business.
Robin Ballantyne
The author was consultant to Dispatches' "Back on the Torture Trail".