VICTIMS of alleged torture by the British state were vindicated today as the Belfast Court of Appeal ruled that criminal investigations into the treatment of the so-called “hooded men” must proceed.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has been ordered to investigate the unlawful treatment of the 14 men who were subjected to inhumane and degrading treatment while they were interned in 1971.

Two of the three judges found they were satisfied that the treatment “would if it occurred today properly be characterised as torture.”

The ruling said that the previous investigation by the historical enquiries team was “irrational and did not honour the undertaking given by the chief constable.”

The PSNI had appealed a previous decision ordering it to launch criminal investigations into the allegations.

The Irish government first took a case against Britain over the alleged torture in 1971.

The European Commission ruled that the mistreatment of the men was torture.

But in 1978 the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) held that the men suffered inhumane and degrading treatment, but not torture.

Despite the emergence of new evidence, in 2018 the ECHR rejected a request by the Irish government to find the men had been tortured.

The hooded men were subjected to a programme of “deep interrogation” using the five techniques — prolonged wall-standing, hooding, subjection to noise, and deprivation of sleep, food and drink.

For seven days the detainees were kept hooded and handcuffed in a cold cell and subjected to a continuous loud hissing noise.

They were also beaten and kicked repeatedly in the genitals.

They were also dangled out of a helicopter and told that they were high in the air, although they were close to the ground.

One of the victims Francis McGuigan said: “After waiting for justice for nearly five decades, the time for accountability is long overdue.”