Reading about Padilla makes me physically sick to my stomach. Especially since it seems pretty apparent there was never any strong evidence that Padilla was actually going to do anything. Bush, and Ashcroft, and whoever else was involved in this travesty ought to all go to prison for what they did. Even if Padilla was a terrorist (and I'm certainly not convinced he was), torture should never be an option, nor should stripping a human of his civil liberties.
Crucial ruling near in Padilla terrorism case | Chicago Tribune A federal judge in Miami will soon make one of the most important rulings in the Bush administration's war on terrorism and decide whether to publicly explore evidence that an accused terrorist was brutally mistreated for years inside a one-man isolation cell. The allegations involve former Chicagoan Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen once portrayed as one of the most dangerous Al Qaeda operatives ever arrested. Padilla's lawyers have asked U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke to set him free because of the abuse they say he suffered....
Padilla told his lawyers and mental-health experts that he was held without sunlight, adequate food or a clock, and was injected with truth-serum drugs to coerce him to talk. At times, he said, his wrists and torso were chained to the cell floor.Heightening the drama is a defense request to question military officials about conditions at the brig. Some officials have expressed concerns in written reports that Padilla and two other enemy combatants held in the brig outside Charleston, S.C., were abused.
...Padilla was arrested in 2002 on suspicion of trying to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in the United States. The Justice Department, led by then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, castigated Padilla as a major terrorist menace but eventually scaled back its assessment and filed lesser charges of conspiracy.
...
Andrew Patel, one of the defense lawyers, said the defense wasn't allowed into the brig until March 2004, only to discover that Padilla was alone in a two-tiered prison wing of 10 cells.Patel said the cell windows were blocked; no natural light entered the 9-foot-by-7-foot space. There was no mirror, no clock, no calendar; just a slot in the door for food and a steel platform for a bed.
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often was kept awake by loud noises or cold conditions, Patel said. Other times, he said, Padilla was given a truth serum that lawyers suspected was some form of LSD or PCP.Dr. Angela Hegarty, a New York psychiatrist who examined Padilla for the defense over five days in June and September, told the judge the prisoner often “begged his guards not to put him in the cage.”
Hegarty said Padilla could not understand his trial was drawing near. “He has large memory gaps related to his detention and he is unable to place events in chronological order,” she said.
The defense team filed a new report Wednesday from Patricia Zapf, a clinical psychologist in New York, who examined Padilla twice in October. She concluded he suffered from depression and paranoia, and had “difficulty with memory, attention and concentration.”
Technorati Tags: civil_liberties, civil_rights, Impeachment, terrorism
