The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Lie-detector tests in war on terror a thorny issue
Measure will be a test of liberal democracies, says top academic
The use of lie-detector tests in the rehabilitation of convicted terrorists must be measured against how far liberal democracies are willing to go in the war on terror, an academic has said.
Dr Tim Wilson, director of St Andrews University’s centre for the study of terrorism and political violence (CSTPV), said polygraph tests would most likely be used to see whether someone had been rehabilitated following time in prison.
It follows a row between Holyrood and Westminster over the use of tests, with Scottish Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf saying the only place for them is on the Jeremy Kyle Show.
The UK Government wants introduce the tests nationwide.
Dr Wilson cited recent terrorist cases – including the Fishmongers’ Hall to example – which might have caused Westminster to consider using liedetector machines.
Usman Khan, 28, from Staffordshire, was appearing at a special event celebrating “reformed” prisoners when he uncovered a fake suicide vest and pulled out two knives, killing Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones.
Dr Wilson said it was the first time he had seen mention of the use of testing for this purpose in UK counter-terrorism.
“I would have some sense that it’s the kind of thing the FBI and CIA might use intryingtoevaluatewhetherintelligence or an agent was trustworthy,” he said.
“But what this seems to be about is very closely tied to release programmes.
“It’s geared towards trying to frankly answer the unanswerable which is how can you release someone safely into the community with an absolute guarantee that they have renounced their previous convictions, beliefs and inspirations.”
He continued: “Would lie detectors be a useful auxiliary tool to build into discussions around early release or release back into the community?
“I’m not absolutely opposed to that – I can see they might have a place.
“But, you know I’m not an expert on how reliable they are and my concern would be they would end up being fetishised and become a very crude metric, rather than one tool amongst many.”
Ultimately, Dr Wilson said the argument would come down to how far democracies were willing to go to suppress terrorism.
“Dictatorships have a much better record of smashing terrorism because they don’t care if they go down on the innocent and the guilty,” he said.
“But if we’re trying to be vaguely abiding by liberal democratic norms this is the really difficult thing.”