Joe Clarke: One of the 'Hooded Men' dies aged 71

Joe Clarke was a 19-year-old apprentice car mechanic when he was arrested by paratroopers at his home on 9 August 1971

Joe Clarke, who was tortured and held without trial in 1971 as one of the 'Hooded Men', has died.

The 71-year-old was one of 14 men arrested during the height of the Troubles under the policy of internment or detention without trial.

It comes as it was announced that police had apologised to the men.

In 2021, the Supreme Court ruled the methods used on the men during their detention "would be characterised today" as torture.

Mr Clarke, who was originally from west Belfast, died on Monday.

The apology was hand delivered to Mr Clarke four days before his death. On Tuesday, the PSNI also expressed sympathy to his family.

He was a 19-year-old apprentice car mechanic when he was arrested by paratroopers at his home on 9 August 1971.

Mr Clarke was held with dozens of others from Belfast in Girdwood Barracks before being moved to Ballykelly army base.

• PSNI apologise to 'Hooded Men' over interrogations

Speaking on Tuesday one of the 'Hooded Men', Francie McGuigan, said Mr Clarke had long waited for an apology.

"He got an apology and was semi-conscious - lying on his death bed and he just said "brilliant" and he went back to sleep and I don't think he spoke after that," he said.

Kevin Hannaway, another of the 'Hooded Men', said getting the letter had put Mr Clarke "to rest" but added that "he knew himself that the fight was far from over."

'Known as Number Four'

During their detention, the 'Hooded Men' said they were forced to listen to constant loud static noise; deprived of sleep, food and water; forced to stand in stress positions; and beaten if they fell.

The men also said they were hooded and thrown from helicopters a short distance off the ground, having been told they were hundreds of feet in the air.

Speaking in a BBC documentary that aired earlier this year, Mr Clarke spoke of his treatment at the hands of his captors.

"I was brought into a room where I was stripped naked and given a so-called medical," he explained.

"A boiler suit was put on me and the hood was then put on me and, when that was on me, they wrote the number four on my hand.

"From then on I was not known as Joe or Clarke or whatever, I was known as Number Four and that's how they addressed me for the next seven days."

Joe Clarke (third from left) with a number of the 'Hooded Men' in 2018

Mr Clarke and the other 'Hooded Men' campaigned for more than 50 years for the acknowledgement that they were tortured.

In 1976, the European Commission of Human Rights ruled that the five techniques used on the men amounted to torture.

This ruling was later referred to by the European Court of Human Rights in 1978, which held that the UK had carried out inhuman and degrading treatment, but fell short of defining it as torture.

In 2019, Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan, Northern Ireland's most senior judge, said their treatment "would, if it occurred today, properly be characterised as torture".

Speaking to the BBC documentary team, he said the ruling later by the Supreme Court in 2021 was "unbelievable", but that it was tinged with sadness that some of the 'Hooded Men' did not live to witness it.