US Government Broke Padilla Through Intense Isolation, Say Experts

[babylonsister]

US Government Broke Padilla Through Intense Isolation, Say Experts
By Warren Richey
The Christian Science Monitor

Tuesday 14 August 2007

Despite warnings, officials used 43 months of severe isolation to force Jose Padilla to tell all he knew about Al Qaeda.

Miami - When suspected Al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla was whisked from the criminal justice system to military custody in June 2002, it was done for a key purpose - to break his will to remain silent.

As a US citizen, Mr. Padilla enjoyed a right against forced self-incrimination. But this constitutional guarantee vanished the instant President Bush declared him an enemy combatant.

For a month, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been questioning Padilla in New York City under the rules of the criminal justice system. They wanted to know about his alleged involvement in a plot to detonate a radiological "dirty bomb" in the US. Padilla had nothing to say. Now, military interrogators were about to turn up the heat.

Padilla was delivered to the US Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C., where he was held not only in solitary confinement but as the sole detainee in a high-security wing of the prison. Fifteen other cells sat empty around him.

The purpose of the extraordinary privacy, according to experts familiar with the technique, was to eliminate the possibility of human contact. No voices in the hallway. No conversations with other prisoners. No tapping out messages on the walls. No ability to maintain a sense of human connection, a sense of place or time.

In essence, experts say, the US government was trying to break Padilla's silence by plunging him into a mental twilight zone. Padilla was not the only Al Qaeda suspect locked away in isolation. Although harsh interrogation methods such as water-boarding, forced hypothermia, sleep deprivation, and stress positions draw more media attention, use of isolation to "soften up" detainees for questioning is much more common.

more...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/081407M.shtml

[NNN0LHI]

1. I would imagine you get get me to say just about anything after 43 months of that

Whether what I said was true or not would be questionable to put it mildly.

Don

[soothsayer]

2. "We tortured Padilla until he said exactly what we wanted."

[Jim__]

3. It is way past time to put a stop to this.

From the article:

By April 2003, Padilla had already spent 10 months in isolation at the brig. Ultimately, he was housed in the same cell, alone in his wing, for three years and seven months, according to court documents.



...

Captain Lefever says it is unfair to compare US antiterror interrogations with Soviet interrogation techniques. "Their abuse was a systematic practice to conceal the truth," he says. "If Padilla was abused, then it was for a righteous purpose - to reveal the truth."

Lefever opposes the use of torture because in most instances it is ineffective. But sometimes, harsh and brutal tactics can produce results, he adds. The key is that interrogators must be careful in their questions not to telegraph an agenda to the subject, because if the technique is coercive enough, the subject will say anything to make it stop.

My understanding is that Padilla's lawyer said Padilla was completely incapable of participating in his own defense. His mind was gone.

This is a disgrace. If we have to do this to preserve our way of life; then our way of life is not worth preserving.

[babylonsister]

4. I so agree; his mind is gone, so what was gained? And they'll probably

still throw him back in jail.

[fujiyama]

5. This quote is chilling:

"If Padilla was abused, then it was for a righteous purpose - to reveal the truth."

Wow. It's amazing what this government can justify.

It's appalling enough when these tactics were used against foreigners, but when we start "breaking" US citizens...

Warrantless wiretaps, torture, indefinite detentions with no representation...

I guess all of these are for "righteous purposes". Captain Lefever obviously doesn't understand that when the Nazis and Soviets used similar tactics, it was for "righteous purposes" too...