Report links medics to CIA jail torture

MEDICAL PERSONNEL oversaw and sometimes participated in the torture of captives at secret CIA prisons, violating medical ethics…

MEDICAL PERSONNEL oversaw and sometimes participated in the torture of captives at secret CIA prisons, violating medical ethics and international law, according to a confidential report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Red Cross investigators, who interviewed 14 “high-value detainees” transferred to Guanánamo Bay from the secret prisons in 2006, concluded that the CIA detention programme was “inhuman”. Health workers monitored prisoners during waterboarding, a form of controlled suffocation, apparently to make sure they did not drown.

They were present when detainees were held in very cold cells, shackled by their arms to the ceiling and repeatedly slammed into walls, according to the report.

One medical worker is quoted as telling a detainee: “I look after your body only because we need you for information.”

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The ICRC report, which was sent to the CIA in February 2007, was published on the website of the New York Review of Books by journalism professor Mark Danner.

It documents the treatment of 14 detainees, who were arrested in different countries and held in secret prisons outside the US for up to four years, but the US government has acknowledged that many more prisoners passed through the CIA “black sites”.

The ill-treatment began before the detainees arrived at the secret prisons, as they were transported from their place of arrest, dressed in tracksuits, blindfolded, with earphones playing loud music and made to wear a diaper.

“The journey times obviously varied considerably and ranged from one hour to over 24 to 30 hours. The detainee was not allowed to go to the toilet and if necessary, was obliged to urinate or defecate into the diaper,” the report says.

“On some occasions the detainees were transported lying flat on the floor of the plane and/ or with their hands cuffed behind their backs. When transported in this position, the detainees complained of severe pain and discomfort.

“Detainees were held in continuous solitary confinement, with no knowledge of where they were and no contact with anyone other than their interrogators and guards, who were usually masked. They had no access to news from the outside world and no contact of any kind with their families.”

Three detainees said they were subjected to waterboarding but almost all experienced other forms of torture and ill-treatment.

These included being forced to stand naked with their arms extended above their heads for up to three days without a break, prolonged sleep deprivation, being kept naked for weeks on end and enduring repeated beatings.

Nine of the 14 prisoners said they were threatened with electric shocks, infection with HIV, sodomy and being brought close to death.

A number of the detainees told ICRC investigators that medical personnel were directly involved in monitoring the effects of the ill-treatment.

“In some cases it was alleged that based on their assessments, health personnel gave instructions to interrogators to continue, to adjust or to stop particular methods,” the report says.

“For certain methods, notably suffocation by water, the health personnel were allegedly directly participating in the infliction of the ill-treatment. In one case, it was alleged that health personnel actively monitored a detainee’s oxygen saturation using what, from the description of the detainee of a device placed over the finger, appeared to be a pulse oxymeter.”

The ICRC report’s publication could increase pressure on the Obama administration to investigate the use of torture under former president George Bush .

The day after his inauguration in January, President Barack Obama ordered the closure of the CIA’s secret prisons and he has pledged that the US will not torture while he is in office.

However, the new director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, has made it clear that no interrogators who took actions based on legal guidance from the department of justice will be investigated or prosecuted.

Last month, a Spanish judge began a criminal investigation into the role of six Bush administration lawyers in devising the legal architecture that authorised torture. Senate judiciary committee chairman Patrick Leahy has called for a “truth commission” to look into the detention policies of the last administration and the senate intelligence committee has announced its own investigation into the CIA detention programme.