Never before has the Justice Depart. sanctioned prolonged mind-altering brutality on a U.S. citizen

[leftchick]

Jose Padilla Brings Torture to Trial
Can a DOJ lawyer be held accountable for advocating the inhumane?

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3536/

Periodically, he says, he was subjected to absolute light or darkness for periods in excess of 24 hours. He was subjected to extreme temperature variations in his cell, where his bed consisted of a cold steel slab with no mattress, pillow or blanket. He says brig guards and others deliberately banged on his walls and bars at all hours of the night. For hours at a time, he says guards kept him shackled and manacled, or forced him to sit or stand in uncomfortable and painful positions.

Worse, his interrogators allegedly threatened to cut him with a knife and pour alcohol in the wounds. He says they also threatened to kill him, or send him to a country where they said he would receive far worse treatment. Against his will, they allegedly administered chemicals, which Padilla believes were psychotropic drugs.

When his lawyers were finally allowed access to him, he was not permitted to tell them about prison conditions.

If Padilla’s allegations are true, they qualify as torture under international law: the intentional infliction of severe physical or mental pain for purposes such as interrogation. The U.N. Committee on Torture and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have held that incommunicado detention—even for periods far shorter than Padilla endured—is torture. They have also ruled that combinations of sensory deprivation techniques amount to torture, as well.

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In a Jan. 16 op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Yoo complained that terrorists use cases like Padilla’s to press “novel theories that have failed at the ballot box.”

If their legal theories are novel, Yoo can thank himself: Never before has the Justice Department sanctioned prolonged, mind-altering brutality on a U.S. citizen.