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US doctors helped interrogators
24/06/2005 13:21 - (SA)
Washington - United States military doctors advised interrogators at the US naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, how to increase stress levels and apply psychological pressure on detainees, The New York Times said on Friday.
Former interrogators told the daily on condition of anonymity that the doctors had based their advice on medical files of the detainees, indicating psychological weaknesses that could be exploited during interrogations.
The interrogators' accounts follow a report in the July 7 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine indicating that interrogators at Guantanamo were systematically accessing the medical records of prisoners.
The report did not mention doctors providing advice to interrogators, but both practices appear to be at odds with ethical rules that establish the confidentiality of prisoners' medical records.
A Pentagon spokesperson told The New York Times that doctors advising interrogators are not covered by ethic strictures because instead of medical professionals they had "other roles" such as behavioural scientists assessing the character of interrogation subjects.
Ethics experts consulted by the daily said there were serious questions about the conduct of the military doctors, especially those in units known as Behavioural Science Consultation Teams, BSCT or "biscuit" teams, which advise interrogators.
"Their purpose was to help us break them," a former interrogator told the Times.
In the New England Journal of Medicine report, which was based on internal military documents, its authors said the US military's Guantanamo policy rather than being consistent with confidentiality rules that "applies to Americans even in prisons ... rejects this presumption."
It underlines that, "within military prisons, personal health information cannot be given to correctional or law-enforcement officials unless they deem it necessary for health, safety, or security reasons," the report said.
As an example of the type of fears exploited by interrogators at the prompting of military doctors, the sources told of a detainee's medical files that showed a severe phobia of the dark.
The doctors, the former interrogators said, suggested ways in which that could be manipulated to induce the detainee to co-operate.
The controversy over abusive interrogation techniques at Guantanamo and other US military prisons, especially those housing terrorist suspects, has grown since the US war in Iraq.
Around 520 suspects of about 40 nationalities, captured during the US-led war on terror, are detained at Guantanamo. A growing list of complaints has led to persistent calls that the facility be shut down.
- AFP
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