US doctors 'hid signs of torture' at Guantanamo

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-doctors-hid-signs-of-torture-at-guantanamo-2275214.html

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001027

US doctors 'hid signs of torture' at Guantanamo

By Steve Connor, Science Editor,

Wednesday, 27 April 2011

US government

doctors who cared for the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay

deliberately concealed or ignored evidence that their

patients were being tortured, the first official study of

its kind has found.

A detailed review of the medical records and case files of

nine Guantanamo inmates has concluded that medical personnel

at the US detention centre were complicit in suppressing

evidence that would demonstrate systematic torture of the

inmates.

The review is published in an online scientific journal,

PLoS Medicine, and is the first peer-reviewed study

analysing the behaviour of the doctors in charge of

Guantanamo inmates who were subjected to "enhanced

interrogation" techniques that a decade ago had been classed

by the US government as torture.

Iacopino, senior medical adviser for Physicians for

Human Rights, and Brigadier General Xenakis, a

retired US Army medical officer, had access to the medical

records and case files while acting on behalf of defence

lawyers.

They concluded that no doctor could have failed to notice

the medical signs and symptoms of the extreme interrogation

techniques and unauthorised assaults that other physicians

would recognise as torture, such as severe beatings

resulting in bone fractures, sexual assaults, mock

executions, and simulated drowning by "waterboarding".

"The findings in these nine cases indicate that medical

doctors and mental health personnel assigned to the US

Department of Defence neglected and/or concealed medical

evidence of intentional harm," the authors of the study

concluded. "The full extent of medical complicity in US

torture practices will not be known until there is a

thorough, impartial investigation including relevant

classified information. We believe that, until such time as

such an investigation is undertaken, and those responsible

for torture are held accountable, the ethical integrity of

medical and other healing professions remains compromised."

Many of the prisoners said they were also subjected to

unauthorised abuses resulting in severe and prolonged

physical and mental pain. These abuses could not have gone

on for so long without the Guantanamo doctors being aware of

the pain inflicted, the study found.

"They effectively concealed the medical evidence of

torture," said Dr Iacopino. "Even in the absence of any

standard operating procedures, the physicians involved had

an ethical duty not to do any harm but it is clear this

principal was breached. They could have and should have had

the courage to document the abuse, but unfortunately that

wasn't done. We need a full investigation and the release of

classified information to find out what happened."

In 2002, the US government redefined acts such as

waterboarding, sleep deprivation, temperature extremes, the

use of stress positions, and prolonged isolation as "safe,

legal, ethical and effective" when dealing with the

interrogation of suspected terrorists.

All of the nine detainees investigated in the study claimed

to their own legal teams that they were also subjected over

many months – and in some cases years – to additional,

unauthorised episodes of ill-treatment, such as severe

beatings, threats of rape, or forced nudity.

"The abuses reported in this case series could not be

practised without the interrogators and medical monitors

being aware of the severe and prolonged physical and mental

pain that they caused," the study found.

Dr Iacopino said that if individual doctors are found to

have breached professional ethics by ignoring the evidence

of torture, they should have their medical licence removed

at the very least.

"In the case of individuals who aided or abetted torture, or

knowingly neglected to document torture, then at the minimum

they should have their licence removed, but they should also

be subject to adjudication under the rule of law," Dr

Iacopino said.