DoD Report Reveals Detainees Interrogated While Drugged, Others "Chemically Restrained"

By Jeffrey Kaye and Jason LeopoldTruthout | Report

 

Detainees in custody of the US military were interrogated while drugged with powerful antipsychotic and other medications that "could impair an individual's ability to provide accurate information," according to a declassified Department of Defense (DoD) inspector general's report that probed the alleged use of "mind altering drugs" during interrogations.

In addition, detainees were subjected to "chemical restraints," hydrated with intravenous (IV) fluids while they were being interrogated and, in what appears to be a form of psychological manipulation, the inspector general's probe confirmed at least one detainee - convicted "dirty bomb" plotter Jose Padilla - was the subject of a "deliberate ruse" in which his interrogator led him to believe he was given an injection of "truth serum." 

Truthout obtained a copy of the report - "Investigation of Allegations of the Use of Mind-Altering Drugs to F..." - prepared by the DoD's deputy inspector general for intelligence in September 2009, under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request we filed nearly two years ago.

Over the past decade, dozens of current and former detainees and their civilian and military attorneys have alleged in news reports and in court documents that prisoners held by the US government in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan were forcibly injected with unknown medications and pills during or immediately prior to marathon interrogation sessions in an attempt to compel them to confess to terrorist-related crimes of which they were accused. 

The inspector general's investigation was unable to substantiate any of the allegations by current and former detainees that, as a matter of government policy, they were given mind-altering drugs "to facilitate interrogation."

But the watchdog's report provides startling new details about the treatment of detainees by US military personnel. For example, the report concludes, "certain detainees, diagnosed as having serious mental health conditions being treated with psychoactive medications on a continuing basis, were interrogated."

Leonard Rubenstein, a medical ethicist at Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Rights and the former president of Physicians for Human Rights, said, "this practice adds another layer of cruelty to the operations at Guantanamo."

"The inspector general's report confirms that detainees whose mental deterioration and suffering was so great as to lead to psychosis and attempts at self-harm were given anti-psychotic medication and subjected to further interrogation," said Rubenstein, who reviewed a copy of the report for Truthout. "The problem is not simply what the report implies, that good information is unlikely to be obtained when someone shows psychotic symptoms, but the continued use of highly abusive interrogation methods against men who are suffering from grave mental deterioration that may have been caused by those very same methods."

Shayana Kadidal, the senior managing atty of the Guantanamo Project at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said the report, which he also reviewed, "reinforces that the interrogation system at Guantanamo was a brutal system." 

"One of the things that struck me after reading this," Kadidal said, "is under the system set up by the [US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia], any statements detainees made during these interrogations would be presumed accurate even if detainees took medication that could produce unreliable information."

"The burden ends up falling upon the detainee to prove what was said wasn't accurate if they were challenging their detention" in habeas corpus proceedings, Kadidal added.

Explaining the rationale behind forcibly drugging detainees, the former commander of the Joint Medical Group at Guantanamo said, "some detainees were involuntarily medicated to help control serious mental illnesses," according to the report, which added that an ethics committee approved of such plans.

"For example, one detainee had a piece of shrapnel in his brain which resulted in control problems and a limited ability to provide effective consent," the report said. 

The detainee with the shrapnel injury may be Abu Zubaydah. In 1992, Zubaydah had suffered a shrapnel wound to the head while fighting on the front lines of a civil war in Afghanistan. Brent Mickum, Zubaydah's habeas attorney, said the high-value detainee has been routinely overdosed with Haldol, the only drug the inspector general identified that was used on certain detainees.

But the report suggests detainees were often not told what types of drugs they were given when they asked or for what purpose it was administered.

Brandon Neely, a former Guantanamo guard who was at the prison facility the day it opened in January 2002, told Truthout, "medics never informed the detainees what the medication was."

"The medics walked around with little white cups that had pills in it a couple of times a day," said Neely, who sometimes accompanied the medics when they distributed the medication. He added that if detainees refused to take it an "Immediate Reaction Force" team, who guards would call to deal with resistant or combative detainees, would administer the medication to prisoners by force.

Rubenstein said the failure to inform prisoners what drugs they were given means "some basic principles of medical ethics were cast aside, especially those requiring a doctor to explain his or her recommendation and seek consent for it as an affirmation of the dignity and autonomy of the patient."

"Even where consent is not forthcoming and involuntary medication is allowed after voluntary medication is not accepted, it should never take place unless this process is followed," Rubenstein said.

The cumulative effects of indefinite detention, interrogations, use of drugs, and other conditions of confinement also appear to have taken a toll on the detainees' mental state and impacted the DoD watchdog's ability to conduct a thorough investigation.

Indeed, when the inspector general sought to interview the attorney representing one detainee who claimed he was given mind-altering drugs during interrogations, the attorney responded, "at this state of his incarceration, [redacted] memory is severely compromised and, unfortunately, we are skeptical that he can provide you with any further details ..."

The investigation also found instances where "chemical restraints" were used on detainees "that posed a threat to themselves or others," which Rubenstein said, "is contrary to US Bureau of Prison regulations, decisions of the US Supreme Court and to medical ethics principles that forbid subordinating the patient's medical interests to prison security."

Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a Defense Department spokesman, said, "as a matter of long-standing department policy," he could not comment on whether "chemical restraints" continue to be part of the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), also known as Tactics, Techniques, Procedures (TTPs), at Guantanamo and other prisons operated by the DoD because "doing so might not only compromise security but [the SOPs] are 'living' documents, subject to regular change and updating."

Media Report Sparked Probe

The inspector general's yearlong probe was launched in June 2008, two months after the publication of a Washington Post report in which some detainees claimed they were forcibly drugged and coerced into making confessions.

One of the detainees at the center of The Washington Post report, Adel al-Nusairi, a former Saudi policeman who was imprisoned at Guantanamo from 2002 to 2005, is prominently featured in the inspector general's report and identified as "IG-02."

According to his attorney's notes cited in The Washington Post, al-Nusairi claimed he was injected with an unknown medication that made him extremely sleepy just before he was interrogated in 2002. When his captors awakened him, he fabricated a confession for US interrogators in hopes they would leave him alone so he could sleep.

"I was completely gone," al-Nusairi told his attorney, Anant Raut. "I said, 'Let me go. I want to go to sleep. If it takes saying I'm a member of al-Qaeda, I will.'"

The inspector general's review of al-Nusairi's medical records showed he was diagnosed as "schizophrenic and psychotic with borderline personality disorder" and injected with Haldol, a powerful antipsychotic medication, whose side effects include lethargy, tremors, anxiety, mood changes and "an inability to remain motionless," according to the watchdog's report.

Haldol can also cause the usually irreversible movement disorder known as tardive dyskinesia. But the inspector general did not say that in his report. The inspector general noted al-Nusairi had told his interrogators he was being forced to take monthly injections that he no longer wanted to receive. The report said "uncooperative" detainees were sometimes forcibly injected with psychoactive medications.

But the investigation concluded there was "no evidence that [al-Nusairi] was administered shots during interrogation."

Despite his diagnosis and the unreliability of the information he provided to his interrogators due to the effects of the antipsychotic medication, al-Nusairi was declared an enemy combatant after he confessed to being a member of al-Qaeda and imprisoned at Guantanamo for three more years before finally being repatriated to Saudi Arabia.

"I think any rational person would agree that confessions of terrorism while under the influence of mind-altering drugs are about credible as professions of love while under the influence of alcohol," Raut, al-Nusairi's attorney, told Truthout.

READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE AT: TRUTHOUT

Views: 270

Comment

You need to be a member of 12160 Social Network to add comments!

Join 12160 Social Network

Comment by apeman2502 on July 13, 2012 at 2:40am

  Gay sadists make lousy presidents just like sadistic straight ones. What the fuck has got into America?

"Destroying the New World Order"

TOP CONTENT THIS WEEK

THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING THE SITE!

mobile page

12160.info/m

12160 Administrators

 

Latest Activity

Doc Vega posted a blog post

A Prelude to WW III ? It Seems There We Are Trailblazing Idiocy into More Blood and Destruction!

They're rolling out the 25th Amendment trying to stop Joe Biden from insanely thrusting the US in a…See More
4 hours ago
Less Prone posted a video

Chris Langan - The Interview THEY Didn't Want You To See - CTMU [Full Version; Timestamps]

DW Description: Chris Langan is known to have the highest IQ in the world, somewhere between 195 and 210. To give you an idea of what this means, the average...
yesterday
Doc Vega posted a blog post

RFK Jr. Appoinment Rocks the World of the Federal Health Agncies and The Big Pharma Profits!

The Appointment by Trump as Secretary of HHS has sent shockwaves through the federal government…See More
Tuesday
tjdavis posted a video

Somewhere in California.

Tom Waites and Iggy Pop meet in a midnight diner in Jim Jarmusch's 2003 film Coffee and Cigarettes.
Tuesday
cheeki kea commented on cheeki kea's photo
Thumbnail

1 possible 1

"It's possible, but less likely. said the cat."
Monday
cheeki kea posted a photo
Monday
tjdavis posted a blog post
Monday
Tori Kovach commented on cheeki kea's photo
Thumbnail

You are wrong, all of you.

"BECAUSE TARIFFS WILL PUT MONEY IN YOUR POCKETS!"
Monday
Tori Kovach posted photos
Monday
Doc Vega posted a blog post

Whatever Happened?

Whatever Happened?  The unsung heroes will go about their dayRegardless of the welcome they've…See More
Sunday
Doc Vega commented on Doc Vega's blog post A Requiem for the Mass Corruption of the Federal Government
"cheeki kea Nice work! Thank you! "
Sunday
cheeki kea commented on Doc Vega's blog post A Requiem for the Mass Corruption of the Federal Government
"Chin up folks, once the low hanging fruit gets picked off a clearer view will reveal the higher…"
Sunday
Doc Vega's 4 blog posts were featured
Saturday
tjdavis's blog post was featured
Saturday
cheeki kea commented on cheeki kea's blog post Replicon Started in Tokyo October 08, 2024
"Your right LP it's insane for sure and hopefully improbable, keeping an open mind. Checking…"
Saturday
rlionhearted_3 commented on tjdavis's blog post Bill Gates Deleted Documentary
Saturday
rlionhearted_3 commented on tjdavis's blog post Bill Gates Deleted Documentary
"The white dude in the center is Bill Gates!!! "
Saturday
Less Prone favorited tjdavis's blog post Bill Gates Deleted Documentary
Nov 15
Less Prone commented on tjdavis's blog post Bill Gates Deleted Documentary
"How can this scoundrel walk free? Because he's just one of the many similar ones."
Nov 15
Less Prone favorited Doc Vega's blog post What Will happen When Robot Brides Replace Human Marriage?
Nov 15

© 2024   Created by truth.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service

content and site copyright 12160.info 2007-2019 - all rights reserved. unless otherwise noted