A Secret History of Torture

The official line is clear: the United Kingdom does not ?participate in, solicit, encourage or condone” torture. And yet, the evidence is irrefutable: when faced with potential threats to their national security, the gloves always come off.

Drawing on previously unseen official documents and the accounts of witnesses, victims and experts, prize-winning investigative journalist Ian Cobain looks beyond the cover-ups, the equivocations, and the attempts to dismiss brutality as the work of a few rogue interrogators, to get to the truth. From the Second World War to the War on Terror, via Kenya and Northern Ireland, A Secret History of Torture shows how the West have repeatedly and systematically resorted to torture, turning a blind eye where necessary, bending the law where they can, and issuing categorical denials all the while. What emerges is a picture of Britain that challenges our complacency on human rights and exposes the lie behind their reputation for fair play.

Ian Cobain has been a journalist since the early 1980s and is currently an investigative reporter with the Guardian. His inquiries into the UK’s involvement in torture since 9/11 have won a number of major awards, including the Martha Gellhorn Prize and the Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism. He has also won several Amnesty International media awards. Cobain lives in London with his wife and two children.