The prosecutors who led an independent inquiry into police torture in Chicago snubbed the City Council today by declining to participate in hearing on the issue.

Had they attended the council's Police and Fire Committee meeting, they would have heard hours of angry testimony deriding their failure to hold officers suspected of torture responsible for their actions.

Alderman Isaac Carothers, the committee chair, said special prosecutors Edward Egan and Robert Boyle preferred to answer critics in a written rebuttal.

Carothers added that the committee lacks the authority to subpoena the lawyers.

The special prosecutor's investigation concluded that former police commander John Burge could not be charged with torturing dozens of suspects before his 1993 dismissal because the statute of limitations had lapsed.

That conclusion wasn't a popular one at the hearing.

“The statue of limitations is the statue of limitations if you want it to be,” said Alderman Thomas Allen. Allen argued that the city should be working on ways to prosecute Burge and other officers.

“They hid behind the statue of limitations to not prosecute,” said Locke Bowman, of the MacArthur Justice Center.

Flint Taylor, a lawyer for the People's Law Office, criticized the city for spending milllions on legal defense for Burge and other officers.

Leonard Cavise a law professor at DePaul University, said torture cases could be prosecuted because there was evidence that the officers involved had committed perjury when questioned about mistreating suspects.

“Statue of limitations is a false issue,” said Cavise.