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Torture comment slammed
17/05/2004 14:19 - (SA)
Copenhagen - Defence officials reacted harshly on Monday after the former chief of an elite army unit said the use of torture, while regrettable, was sometimes necessary.
In a live television interview on Sunday night, Lieutenant Colonel Poul Dahl, who headed the elite Jaegerkorps unit in the late 1990s, said that "we regrettably use interrogation methods that we normally would call torture."
Dahl, who now heads an infantry unit in Skive, 300km northwest of Copenhagen, was speaking broadly about how interrogations can take place. He didn't name any Danish unit in Iraq using such methods.
Dahl added that the use of torture should only be directed against terrorists.
"I must sharply distance myself from this statement," Defence Minister Soeren Gade said, adding Denmark had signed the UN Convention against torture which said that the abuse and humiliation of people "is not only forbidden, it's illegal."
Denmark has 496 troops based in Iraq, at Basra and nearby Qurnah, 400km southeast of Baghdad. They are under British command.
"We cannot (tell) people that they should respect democracy and human rights if we don't even respect them ourselves" Gade said.
In a separate statement, Denmark's military chief of staff, Army Gen Hans Jesper Helsoe, said that the Danish military cannot and will not accept or condone the use of any form of torture.
Helsoe said that Dahl's comments were made as a private person and not as a military officer.
The Jaegerkorps, which is similar to Britain's Special Air Services and the United State's Army Rangers, has been active in the US-led war against terrorism in Afghanistan.
The highly secret unit is not believed to be in Iraq.
- AP
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