[Pnews] Doctor who aided in torture at Guantanamo Bay won't be punished by American Psychological Association
Prisoner News
ppnews at freedomarchives.org
Thu Jan 23 11:42:36 EST 2014
Doctor who aided in torture of suspected terrorist at Guantanamo Bay
won't be punished by American Psychological Association
* *Dr John Leso consulted on the interrogation methods at Guantanamo
Bay*
* *The methods were so severe that even Pentagon officials called
them 'torture'
*
* *The American Psychological Association decided last month not to
punish him*
* *They cite instances where he spoke about being uncomfortable with
detainee abuse*
By Ashley Collman
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Ashley+Collman>
*http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2544395/Doctor-aided-torture-suspected-terrorist-Guantanamo-Bay-wont-punished-American-Psychological-Association.html*
*PUBLISHED:* 21:46 EST, 22 January 2014 | *UPDATED:* 06:05 EST, 23
January 2014
The American Psychological Association has refused to punish one of its
members for assisting in the torture of a 9/11 terrorist suspect at
Guantanamo Bay.
Leaked documents show that Dr John Leso, now a retired US Army reserves,
instructed prison staff on ways to obtain intelligence from detainees
including Mohammed al-Qahtani, the twentieth 9/11 hijacking suspect. The
methods were so severe even Pentagon officials called them 'torture'.
Methods included forcibly hydrating Qahtani though IVs and then not
letting him use the bathroom. They also subjected him to loud music,
made him bark like a dog and deprived him of sleeping saying he can go
to bed 'when he tells the truth'.
But in an APA letter obtained by the Guardian
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/22/guantanamo-torture-mohammed-al-qahtani-suspected-9-11-hijacker>
from December 31, they decided they 'cannot proceed with formal charges
in this matter. Consequently the complaint against Dr Leso has been
closed'.
The APA doesn't deny that Dr Leso took part in the torture, but says his
actions didn't meet the burden of 'direct unethical conduct' since he
was a noted critic of the military's intelligence gathering approach.
Leso and colleague Major Paul Burney were the authors of an
interrogation handbook of sorts - a memorandum called
'Counter-Resistance Strategies which advised on how to best get
information from prisoners.
'All aspects of the [detention] environment should enhance capture
shock, dislocate expectation, and support exploitation to the fullest
extent possible,' one section read.
But Leso and Burney distanced themselves from the document during a
Senate panel in 2007, saying they were' not comfortable with the memo
they were asked to produce'.
Prior to that, just a month before logs show he aided in the
interrogation of Qahtani, Leso was in a Guantanamo meeting in which he
said that detainee abuse may not prove fruitful.
'Force is risky, and may be ineffective due to the detainees' frame of
reference,' he said in October 2002. 'They are used to seeing much more
barbaric treatment.'
These occasions of noted discomfort are what the APA are using to defend
their move in exonerating Leso.
'Available evidence in the public domain also includes that, in the face
of pressure from the highest levels of the Bush administration which
strongly supported 'enhanced' interrogation tactics, the respondent
sought consultation and argued against such approaches and in favor of
rapport-building approach,' wrote Lindsay Childress-Beatty, the deputy
director of the APA's ethics office, in the December 31 letter.
The APA's decision has not been popular among other psychologists who
believe this breaks their 'do no harm' rule.
Trudy Bond is the Ohio psychologist who complained about Leso's work at
Guantanamo to the APA and said their decision sends the message that
'psychologists are free to violate our ethical code, perhaps, in certain
situations'.
Read more:
* US psychology body declines to rebuke member in Guantánamo torture
case
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/22/guantanamo-torture-mohammed-al-qahtani-suspected-9-11-hijacker>
--
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