Exams show torture of U.S.-held detainees: report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Medical examinations of 11 former terrorism suspects held by U.S. troops found proof of physical and psychological torture resulting in long-term damage, a human rights advocacy group said on Wednesday.

Mistreatment cited by the men included beatings and other physical and sexual abuse, isolation, forced nakedness and being forced into painful stress positions with hands and feet bound.

"The evaluations provide evidence of violation of criminal laws prohibiting torture and of the commission of war crimes by U.S. personnel," said the report by the Cambridge, Mass.-based Physicians for Human Rights.

Also on Wednesday, three former U.S. interrogators told a seminar that abusive techniques were counterproductive and urged that they be banned. "These coercive techniques are not working," Joe Navarro, a former senior FBI interrogator, said at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Human Rights First.

The image of the U.S. military has been tarnished by abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and criticism over the detention facility at the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay on Cuba. Rights groups have condemned the U.S. government for allowing interrogation techniques they describe as torture. The Bush administration insists it does not practice or allow torture.

Navarro said soldiers in the field who tried to apply vague administration-developed guidelines on interrogations reported that they "in fact were torturing."

Physicians for Human Rights said its report gave the most detailed account, supplemented by medical evidence, of the detainees tortured at the hands of U.S. personnel.

"Additionally, this report provides further evidence of the role health professionals played in facilitating detainee abuse by being present during torture and ill-treatment ... and failing to stop or document detainee abuse," it said.

The report said seven of the 11 had considered suicide.

The report was released a day after Congress looked into how Pentagon officials developed interrogation techniques after the September 11 attacks, amid questions over whether there was a systematic government effort to determine the harshest methods.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the study had significant shortcomings and doctors did not know the complete medical history of the detainees.

He said the Department of Defense had several times reviewed and adjusted detention procedures, but its policy had always been to treat detainees humanely.

TORTURE AND ABUSE 'SECOND TO NONE'

Physicians for Human Rights conducted two-day clinical interviews and evaluations of the 11 former detainees to document psychological and physical consequences of their treatment in custody.

Four of the men were arrested in or brought to Afghanistan between late 2001 and early 2003 and were later sent to Guantanamo. They were held for an average of three years before being released without charge.

The other seven were detained in Iraq, most in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, in 2003 and also released without charge.

"As a physician with more than 15 years of experience evaluating and caring for torture victims from all over the world, the torture and abuse these men were subjected to in Abu Ghraib and the resulting trauma are second to none," said Allen Keller, one of the medical evaluators for the study.

Keller said the report found "clear physical and psychological evidence" of torture and abuse, often causing lasting suffering.

Leonard Rubenstein, president of the advocacy group, said the men, particularly those held in Iraq, described "gratuitous cruelty" by U.S. personnel.

"Another key finding is that the authorized techniques, many of which themselves amount to torture, begat yet additional forms of torture, proving once again that once torture starts it can't be contained," Rubenstein said.

The report gave one example of the case of a man named Amir, arrested by U.S. forces in Iraq in August 2003.

Amir said while at Abu Ghraib prison he was placed in a foul-smelling room and forced to lay face down in urine while he was hit and kicked. He was also sodomized with a broomstick and forced to howl like a dog while a soldier urinated on him. After a soldier stepped on his genitals, he fainted.

Amir experiences physical and psychological symptoms nearly four years after being released, the report said.

(additional reporting by Randall Mikkelsen)

(Editing by David Storey and Cynthia Osterman)