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

By Deborah Charles

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.