Amal Clooney: British Army Her Next Foe in an Irish Torture Case

Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney is taking on the British Army as her next foe in an international torture case that dates back to the 1970s and involves 10 surviving men known in the United Kingdom as the "hooded men."

Clooney, wife of American actor George Clooney, is a part of a team of lawyers from London, Dublin and Belfast who have taken up the cause of the men who have charged they were tortured by the British Army as they were held without trial in Northern Ireland in August 1971, reported the BBC News.

According to The Guardian, the army was charged with hooding the initial 14 suspects and putting them into stress positions while using sleep deprivation, food and water deprivation and white noise. The men were arrested under the British policy of internment without trial in 1971 when thousands of suspects, mainly from Ireland's nationalist-republican community, were rounded up and held.

The case has come in front of the European Court of Human Rights on appeal with the backing of the Irish government, noted the BBC News. The men had initially won their torture complaint in 1976 in front of the European Commission on Human Rights.

In 1978 the European Court of Human Rights blamed Britain for its inhuman and degrading treatment of the 14 prisoners, but the treatment fell short of its definition of torture and the court overturned the commission's ruling, noted The Guardian.

After years of trying to get the case reopened, the Irish government took the side of the men in December, saying their treatment should have been recognized as torture, noted BBC News.

Darragh Mackin, a solicitor from the Belfast firm working the case, told The Guardian that Clooney brings a strong history of international human right experience to the legal team.

"We think Amal's track record speaks for itself, as do all of the counsels' CVs in this case," said Mackin. "It is an extremely rare application, an interstate case before the European court. Therefore it is very significant that we have people with the background and experience of Amal and the other barristers who are involved making this application."

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