5/11

Torture was "technically illegal" in England at the time, except "in exceptional circumstances". There was only one rack in existence, kept in the Tower of London.
(from BBC's Timewatch, last night)

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There is a recording we made from Andijan so chilling that people cannot speak while it is playing.

It is an open line to the mobile phone of one of the demonstrators. You can hear a wall of automatic gunfire, like siege fire, and among it people muttering their last prayers: "Allah-u Akbar, Allah-u Akbar - God is great."

As the shooting grows louder and louder, the voices become thinner until, after more than an hour there is a click, and silence.

The man with the phone was killed.

'From our own Correspondent'. Monica Whitlock can be heard here - first up on the Radio 4 edition. Hugh Schofield on Paris is second up.