...and then some.
Lindsay Beyerstein has a new article "Perverse Justice" at In These Times about Jose Padilla.
Jose Padilla spent approximately three and a half years in solitary confinement at the Navy Brig in Charleston, S.C. He spent most of his day in a 9’x7’ cell. The window of his cell was painted over so that he could not see daylight. At times he was deprived of his mattress and pillow. He ate alone in his cell.
At many points, his only human contact was with his interrogators.
Padilla was not even allowed access to a lawyer during his first two years in captivity. Jacoby’s declaration argued that Padilla should not be allowed to have a lawyer because he was undergoing interrogation techniques designed to induce complete trust and dependence on interrogators. Access to a lawyer, Jacoby maintained, would keep some hope of rescue alive and therefore interfere with the process.
When Padilla was finally assigned lawyers, he was so uncooperative that his defense team called in Columbia University forensic psychiatrist Angela Hegarty to establish some kind of rapport with him. In a recent radio interview, Hegarty described Padilla as extremely anxious and unwilling to be interviewed at all. He told her that if he talked about what had happened to him in the brig people would "know he was crazy." He said there was no need to cooperate with his lawyers because the government already knew everything.
According to Grassian, Padilla’s rocky relationship with his legal team is typical of inmates in solitary confinement. Isolation directly interferes with an inmate’s ability to collaborate effectively with his or her lawyers.
How crazy was Jose Padilla by the time he met his lawyers?
He was very angry that the civil proceedings were 'unfair to the commander-in-chief.'
Padilla wanted his mother to contact George W. Bush, because he thought Bush would help him.
ACTION: Please send a copy of Lindsay Beyerstein's article to your Senators and Congressperson, and urge them to pass a Human Rights law against subjecting prisoners to sensory deprivation and long isolation.