US citizen Jose Padilla has been found guilty of plotting to kill people overseas and supporting terrorism. His two co-defendants, Lebanese-born Palestinian Adham Amin Hassoun and Jordanian-born Kifah Wael Jayyousi, were convicted on the same counts.Below is a detailed report from Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! news show describing what has been done to him:
In a Democracy Now! national broadcast exclusive, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Angela Hegarty speaks for the first time about her experience interviewing Jose Padilla for 22 hours to determine the state of his mental health.
Padilla is the U.S. citizen who was classified by President Bush as an enemy combatant and held in extreme isolation at a naval brig in South Carolina for over three-and-a-half years. His case is now before a Florida jury. “What happened at the brig was essentially the destruction of a human being’s mind,” said Dr. Hegarty. “[Padilla’s] personality was deconstructed and reformed.” She said the effects of the extreme isolation on Padilla are consistent with brain damage. “I don’t know if he’s guilty or not of the charges that they brought against him,” said Dr. Hegarty. “But, already – before he was ever found guilty – he’s paid a tremendous price for his trip to the Middle East.” [includes rush transcript] A jury began deliberations on Wednesday in Miami in the case of Jose Padilla, the Brooklyn-born man once accused by the Bush administration of plotting to set off a dirty bomb inside the United States.
The FBI initially arrested him in Chicago in 2002 after he got off a plane from Europe. For a month he was held as a material witness. Then Attorney General John Ashcroft made a dramatic announcement – the U.S. government had disrupted an al-Qaeda plot to set off nuclear dirty bombs inside the United States. At the center of the plot, Ashcroft alleged, was Padilla.
President Bush then classified Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant, stripping him of all his rights. He was transferred to a Navy brig in South Carolina where he was held in extreme isolation for forty three months.
The Christian Science Monitor reported: “Padilla’s cell measured nine feet by seven feet. The windows were covered over… He had no pillow. No sheet. No clock. No calendar. No radio. No television. No telephone calls. No visitors. Even Padilla’s lawyer was prevented from seeing him for nearly two years.”
http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2007/08/how-jose-padilla-was-treated-while-in.html
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