As far as I’m concerned, I know not the guilt [or the lack thereof] of Jose Padilla. I did not write this missive in defense of Jose Padilla. Whether he’s guilty or not, what I write about is the total, systemic lack of justice in his case. It defies logic; it defies common human decency; and it defies all American jurisprudence. In fact, the Jose Padilla case will leave a dark, indelible stain on the ideals, principles and tenets of democracy in this country.
But, it’s not over yet.
Padilla, convicted by a Miami jury of conspiring with Al Qaeda to engage in violent jihad, is now attempting to have the last word. Unfortunately, for those in Washington who would like him silent, he refuses to go quietly into the night. If he wins, that word will amplify, send a stinging message to Washington, and inevitably be the bane of one, Donald Rumsfeld, and 59 other U.S. officials. Padilla’s lawyers claim is a simple one. Rumsfeld and 59 of his peers are responsible for 5 years of abusive treatment and a myriad of other unconstitutional tactics used against Padilla while he was held in military custody as an enemy combatant from 2002 to 2006.
The civil suit was filed earlier this year in federal court in South Carolina by lawyers working on Padilla’s case. The suit was publicly disclosed this last week.
From The Christian Science Monitor:
"Mr. Padilla suffered gross physical and psychological abuse at the hands of federal officials as part of a scheme of abusive interrogation intended to break down Mr. Padilla's humanity and his will to live," the 30-page complaint says.
"The grave violations suffered by Padilla were not isolated occurrences by rogue lower-level officials," the suit says. Besides Mr. Rumsfeld, it names Defense Secretary Robert Gates, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and former Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lowell Jacoby, among others, who "personally ordered and/or approved Mr. Padilla's detention and interrogation program."
Last week, Padilla was found guilty by a Miami jury of conspiring with Al Qaeda to engage in violent jihad. Federal prosecutors said he attended a training camp in Afghanistan. He faces a potential life sentence in prison.
Some analysts have pointed to Padilla's conviction as vindication of the Bush administration's alleged harsh treatment of him at the US Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C., prior to his transfer to the criminal justice system in early 2006. But other analysts say that regardless of the guilty verdict in Miami, significant constitutional and other legal issues surrounding Padilla's treatment by the military remain unresolved.
The main issue is whether a U.S. citizen like Padilla – arrested on American soil – can indeed be stripped of his constitutional rights while held in military custody, and interrogated as an ‘enemy combatant'.
Padilla was held in solitary confinement at the South Carolina brig for 43 months.
Justice Department lawyers are defending each of the named defendants. Although having to respond to the case by October 15, Andrew Ames, a Justice Department spokesman said he would not comment on the pending case before that. A spokesman for the Defense Department also offered no specific response regarding the case, but did repeat earlier statements that all detainees in Bush’s ‘war on terror democracy' are treated humanely and fairly.
However, despite the word of the Bush regime, Padilla’s lawyers are asking U.S. District Court Judge Henry Floyd to declare Padilla’s treatment in the brig ‘unlawful’ and "... in violation of the U.S. Constitution." They are also asking the Judge to award damages of $1 against each of the 60 potential defendants.
Despite the paltry monetary damages sought - which, by the way, should send a clear message that this case is about justice - the case does raise pivotal constitutional issues dealing with the scope of the president’s power as commander-in-chief to negate many of the constitutional rights of American citizens whom he alone deems ‘enemy combatants’. Padilla’s case is crucial because it’s the only means available of subjecting his military confinement to the independent scrutiny of federal courts.
"This is the American people's last chance to know what happened behind the closed doors in Charleston, and the last chance for a court to determine if what happened is consistent with our Constitution and values," says Jonathan Freiman, one of Padilla's lawyers who also works with the National Litigation Project at Yale Law School.
Unlike the Abu Ghraib scandal, which has involved the prosecution of a few low-level individuals, the Padilla lawsuit seeks to hold the chain of command accountable. In addition to cabinet-level officials, it seeks to identify and hold accountable key brig staff members, military and other government lawyers, medical and psychological staff members, brig guards, and Padilla's interrogators. Most of the prospective defendants have not yet been identified by name in the suit.
Padilla was subjected to sleep deprivation, stress positions, prolonged isolation, and sensory deprivation, among other interrogation techniques, the suit says. "These procedures were calculated to and actually did disrupt profoundly his senses and personality," the complaint says. It was done to "destroy Mr. Padilla's ordinary emotional and cognitive functioning and break his will, in order to extract information from him and punish him."
According to the suit, Padilla was held for two years without any outside contact. Not even his lawyers were allowed access to him, and during that time, government officials warned Padilla not to reveal the conditions of his detainment – even to his lawyers. In addition, they told Padilla that his attorneys were not trustworthy, and were actually working for the U.S. government. If proven true, this allegation alone would be tantamount to a sustained effort on behalf of the U.S. government to undermine the ability of Padilla’s lawyers to learn of his actual conditions of confinement and effectively challenge them in court. Simply put, Padilla was denied justice.
Padilla was denied access to mental health care, the complaint says. Military officials "deliberately caused Mr. Padilla to undergo extreme psychiatric stress without providing any psychiatric care," the suit says. They denied this access even after Padilla's lawyers reported "signs of psychiatric distress in Mr. Padilla, such as involuntary twitching, and self-inflicted scratch wounds on his body."
The suit also says that two years into his military detention brig staff grew so concerned about Padilla's psychological distress from his prolonged isolation that they asked for permission to at least allow him to eat his meals with another prisoner.
The request was denied.
One major hurdle for Padilla's civil suit is whether the government will ask Judge Floyd to dismiss it on grounds that any open-court discussion of Padilla's interrogation and treatment in the brig would reveal state secrets.
Legal analysts are divided on whether a judge would throw out Padilla's case should the government invoke the so-called state secrets privilege. A lawsuit filed by a German citizen mistakenly held and interrogated in secret locations overseas by the Central Intelligence Agency was dismissed on those grounds by a federal judge in Virginia. In March, the action was upheld by the Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals, which also has jurisdiction over cases in South Carolina. That case has been appealed to the US Supreme Court.
Since Padilla was never officially found to have actually fought on a battlefield for al-Qaeda and against U.S. troops, in a sane world, a just world, I would say Padilla’s case stands a fair chance of winning. But, in this perpetual state of alternate reality, it must get by the invocation of ‘states paranoia secrets’ by the U.S. government. What part of this case would actually harm national security, is beyond my comprehension, and I suspect beyond a lot more people’s comprehension as well.
A supposed signature on an application for employment with al-Qaeda and taped phone calls between Padilla and other suspected terrorists, in which they talked about joining al-Qaeda, seems like pretty slim evidence to me. The charges against Padilla have fallen one by one over the past 5 years – especially since the government threw everything but the kitchen sink at him - and nothing but the latest, hail mary charge pass has managed to stick.
This case was part of a sustained neocon fascist illusion. It's just a tragedy that this illusion has very real actors.
Although, I'd like to think that this couldn't happen in America; in my heart, I now accept the fact that anyone of us could be one of those actors, for doing far less than Jose Padilla has been charged with.
It's time to impeach these madmen.
Peace