Q. If such a suspect were subjected to torture in interogation and died as a result, either before or after yielding life saving information, would the interogator/torturer be charged with murder?

Now if I remember right during WII , Croatia was a nation of supporters to the German Reich. ie: The Nazis.

Nice place Croatia, but there still lives an under current,of social ignorance of the divertsity of life in the world.

Then it is a hilly country, so communication may still be difficult, between villages!

Hence why they came to the low country areas ie: Australia.

Mirks still seems to live in the past....I blame the parents!

Sancho,
Thanks for your forthright response.

Grputland,
LOL
I think you are jumping at shadows – never mind, it’s probably only those elephants’ fooling around.

I don’t consider myself in any camp, not the anti-camp, not the pro-camp and not even, just plain old camp camp!

I’m more a fence sitter – looking for answers.

And the word “demand” as in Horus demanded a yes or no is too harsh ( I’m not a bogey-man interrogator)

The definitions of torture I have seen are not as sure/iron clad as some would imply – they seem more like a loose Lego construct held together with conditions and qualifiers:
a) The Red Cross talks the "intentional infliction of SEVERE suffering or pain for a specific purpose”
b) The US Justice Dept “Acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin said in the new memo that torture may consist of acts that fall short of provoking excruciating and agonizing pain and thus may include mere physical suffering or lasting mental anguish”
I’m perplexed – do we have a dial which objectively registers ‘severe’ or ‘lasing mental anguishing’ in kilos or joules?

And with all due respect, many of the claims do verge on religious faith:
‘Torture cannot save lives’
It bears repeating:
Torture cannot save lives
Torture cannot save lives
Torture cannot save lives
If you say it often enough it sound like a Gregorian chant –and it has much akin with one
(Most of us may live in the age of uncertainty & see shades or gray –but not everyone it seems )

Horus
> "I don’t consider myself in any camp, not the anti-camp, not the pro-camp and not even, just plain old camp camp! I’m more a fence sitter – looking for answers."

If that's the case, it's not at all clear from your posts in this discussion. On the contrary, you sneer at civil liberties and the notion of witch-hunts like a paid-up neo-conservative!

When you attack "civil liberties", you're not mocking the right of unemployed homosexual hippies to smoke pot on the steps of Parliament House. Instead, you're stating that you don't value your freedom to associate with whom you choose, or speak your mind in contradiction with the government or police.

Horus
> "Torture cannot save lives"

In rare circumstances, torture will save lives. But so what? Giving every Australian a handgun would also save some lives, but the benefit would be lost in the escalation of shootings and violent crime.

Horus
> "do we have a dial which objectively registers ‘severe’ or ‘lasing mental anguishing’ in kilos or joules?"

If drowning prisoners, electrocuting their testicles, or beating their hands with steel cables to the point of permanent disability isn't "severe", what other tricks would you suggest to those wimpish torturers?

Horus
> "many of the claims do verge on religious faith"

On the contrary, the claims have more in common with rational atheism: we have no proof that torture is effective (apart from the unverified statements of the torturers themselves), and lots to show that it isn't.

By approving torture without evidence you're simply indulging the desire for revenge - a feature of human history which we overcame to construct the most civilised culture ever.

Prove to me that even one terrorist act has been prevented in Australia by the use of torture. Show me the confession and the evidence to back it up. Or is the public too stupid too judge for itself?

This isn't a theoretical debate about what MIGHT happen IF we regressed to the use of torture. It is happening right now, mostly to people who have done nothing wrong.

By declaring 'war on terror' we have already granted licence to the security apparatus to carry out pre-emptive operations against those identified as 'enemies' in such a war. This logically includes active intelligence gathering and counter-intelligence operations with interception being the objective but to endorsed torture as a means of waging war is also terrorism.
The use of such tactics as kidnap, assassination, torture and murder by the security apparatus is not compatible with any type of ethical government and would be gravely dangerous to any free society.
To sacrifice some degrees of transparency in process for operational reasons may be permissable within an effective, legal framework but fully subscribing to the idea of 'fighting fire with fire' or 'an eye for an eye' has too many legal and moral implications to be seriously debated.
Terrorising and torturing are too similar to be an effective counterweight one another.

So far the arguments for allowing torture are intellectually feeble.

That there are specific examples where the use of waterboarding and other coercive techiques have provided useful information where normal interogation wouldn't, but the only times where this has been successful is where:
= The suspect is known to have specific information,
- The information is time critical,
- The information can be immediately acted on.
The times where this applies is rare, and almost always in conflict areas. In all other situations, the information provided by normal interogation is better.

The reality is that where coercive means are permitted they are always abused because the decision is left to the interogator as to when it is applicable. The results in Iraq where that the population rapidily grew to hate the Americans and violent resistance grew. The result is hundreds of thousands losing their lives unnecessarily.

To say that in Australia that this power will not be abused is laughable especially in the light of the atrocious abuse of power in the Haneef case.

Aside from the obvious moral bankruptcy of the author's proposal it is also practically flawed.