Last night on Daily Kos, Meteor Blades broke a significant piece of news: on August 14, Lt. Colonel Diane Zierhoffer, a U.S. Army psychologist who ordered illegal torture techniques -- sleep deprivation and isolation -- on a juvenile detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, invoked her right to avoid compulsory self-incrimination, refusing to testify in the case of Mohammad Jawad.
Lt. Colonel Zierhoffer, PhD, had been called as a witness before the National Military Commission trial by defense attorney David Frakt, an Air Force Reserves Major. She had been slated to testify yesterday in a hearing on his motion to dismiss the case, based upon alleged gross government misconduct in torturing Jawad.
Dr. Zierhoffer's testimony would have been the first publicly known occasion that a member of the Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT) had been called to testify in a detainee hearing.
MB reported that Dr. Zierhoffer invoked her right not to testify under Article 31 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which prohibits compulsory self-incrimination. Before MB's post, the name and rank of Dr. Zierhoffer had been unknown. MB also revealed her eight-year membership (from 1997 to 2005) in the American Psychological Association (APA).
In his oral argument yesterday, Major Frakt stated:
"What has this country come to when a licensed psychologist, a senior officer in the U.S. Armed Forces, someone trained in the art of healing broken hearts and mending broken minds, someone with a duty to do no harm, turns her years of training and education to the art of breaking people, to the intentional devastation of a lonely, homesick teenage boy?"
MB noted that the APA, now holding its annual convention in Boston, "has faced growing concern about its stance on torture, and particularly its unwillingness to say that psychologists should not participate in BSCTs when violation of international law is occurring or likely to occur."
A few hours after the news broke on Daily Kos, Joseph Goldstein of the New York Sun reported:
A military psychologist's unprecedented refusal to testify when called to a Guantanamo courtroom yesterday will add to a debate that is expected to rage at this weekend's annual convention of the American Psychological Association.
The professional organization is riven over whether to prohibit members who are in the military or who work with intelligence agencies from participating in the interrogation of suspected terrorists. That issue has prompted the first referendum in the organization's history this month, for which voting remains open.
The issue has also spurred a New York psychoanalyst, Steven Reisner, to run for president of the APA on a platform of banning psychologists from involvement in national security interrogations "at sites where the conditions violate international law," he told The New York Sun yesterday....
The event that occurred in a courtroom yesterday at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, is expected to add a new dimension to the debate among psychologists this weekend. When a military psychologist was called yesterday to testify about the treatment of a detainee, she pleaded the military law's equivalent of the Fifth Amendment privilege to not self-incriminate, the detainee's lawyer, Major David Frakt, said in a press release sent by an intermediary. The psychologist's name is protected by court order.
Today, Dr. Stephen Soldz, a psychoanalyst, psychologist, and faculty member at Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, posted on his blog a press release from the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology and Psychologists for an Ethical APA. In his introduction to the release, Dr. Soldz states: "I was scheduled to testify at the Guantánamo Military commission yesterday. At the last moment the testimony was canceled. Here is a Press Release from the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology and Psychologists for an Ethical APA explaining why."
The press release states: "A military psychologist who recommended isolation torture techniques on a Guantánamo detainee today invoked her right not to incriminate herself, refusing to testify in the case of Mohammad Jawad."
The release also quotes Major Frakt on his interpretation of why this development is significant:
"The fact that the BSCT Psychologist now apparently recognizes that her conduct was criminal in nature is very significant. We have alleged, based on classified government records that the BSCT psychologist’s recommendation led directly to the illegal abuse and inhumane treatment of Mohammad Jawad. This invocation of the right to remain silent seems to confirm that."
Carol Rosenberg of McClatchy Newspapers reports that Judge Stephen Henley, a US Army Colonel, rejected Major Frakt's motion to dismiss on grounds of gross government misconduct. However, the judge ordered a review of the charges against Jawad, who is accused of throwing a grenade that wounded two US soldiers and a translator in Afghanistan. The incident allegedly took place in December 2002; Jawad was 16 or 17 at the time of his capture.
Rosenberg reports:
[Judge Henley] instructed that the case be sent back for review by a Bush administration appointee, Susan Crawford, the so-called Convening Authority for Military Commissions.
This time, said Air Force Reserves Maj. David Frakt, Jawad's lawyer, Crawford will get to read about Jawad's descriptions of sleep deprivation and isolation at Guantánamo and beatings and hearing other captives cry at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
''At least for the first time, she will be presented with a valid portrait of the facts and circumstances of this case,'' Frakt said.
The press release from the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology and Psychologists for an Ethical APA emphasizes a call for APA to reform its ethical codes to hold accountable psychologists involved in torture:
Dr. Soldz said that the actions of the BSCT psychologist in Jawad’s case, typical as they appear to be of the BSCT program, show the falsity of APA’s claim. Rather, BSCTs use their psychological expertise "to identify weaknesses in detainees that can be exploited to break them down psychologically and render them dependent upon the interrogators," he said.
In the absence of ethical leadership from the APA, a referendum to remove psychologists from sites in violation of international law has been proposed by members; ballots went out to the membership last week and are due back in mid-September.
In a recent letter in support of the referendum, Bryant Welch, a clinical psychologist, attorney and former long-time APA official, said: "In the eyes of the world psychologists are being seen as aiders and abettors of torture. The damage to the profession grows day by day, and the shamefulness of it reflects on all of us, whether we like it or not."
With the APA convention happening in Boston this week, these revelations matter now more than ever. In the comment thread to MB's post last night, bobscofield made a cogent point worth remembering: "The Fifth Amendment was created expressly to prevent people from being tortured into talking. And here we have somebody invoking the 5th to refuse to testify about whether or not she ordered torture?"
Yes, bobscofield, it is ironic.