Dr. Angela Hegarty, director of forensic psychiatry at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens, N.Y., spent 22 hours with Padilla, evaluating the state of his mental health. She determined that the interrogation techniques that were used against him had destroyed his mind.
Amy Goodman (who is coming to Stanford) interviewed Dr. Hegarty regarding her session with Padilla. The following is a portion of this interview.
Goodman: What was the effect of over three-and-a-half years of isolation on Jose Padilla?
Dr. Hegarty: I think there's two things, really. Number one, his family, more than anything, and his friends, who had a chance to see him by the time I spoke with them, said he was changed. There was something wrong. There was something very "weird" -- was the word one of his siblings used -- something weird about him. There was something not right. He was a different man. And the second thing was his absolute state of terror, terror alternating with numbness, largely. It was as though the interrogators were in the room with us. He was like -- perhaps like a trauma victim who knew that they were going to be sent back to the person who hurt them and that he would, as I said earlier, he would subsequently pay a price if he revealed what happened. So I think those would be the two main things.
"Also he had developed, actually, a third thing. He had developed really a tremendous identification with the goals and interests of the government. I really considered a diagnosis of Stockholm syndrome. For example, at one point in the proceedings, his attorneys had, you know, done well at cross-examining an FBI agent, and instead of feeling happy about it like all the other defendants I've seen over the years, he was actually very angry with them. He was very angry that the civil proceedings were "unfair to the commander-in-chief," quote/unquote. And in fact, one of the things that happened that disturbed me particularly was when he saw his mother. He wanted her to contact President Bush to help him, help him out of his dilemma. He expected that the government might help him, if he was "good," quote/unquote."
A bit later in the interview, Dr. Hegarty stated:
"beyond the most broadest brush strokes, he was unable to put anything in any kind of a chronological narrative at all. He was very, what we would call it in psychiatry, "concrete." You would ask him, you know, how did you feel about something, or what have you, and he would generally resort to cliches. He seemed to have a great deal of difficulty recalling precise personal details about the interrogations or the experiences or particular incidents. He wouldn't know when they happened or how long they lasted, and so forth."
And still more damning:
Goodman: The new Army Field Manual bars the use of isolation to achieve psychological disorientation through sensory deprivation. The manual states, "Sensory deprivation may result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations, as well as bizarre thoughts, depression, anti-social behavior. Detainees will not be subject to sensory deprivation." But you say he was.
Dr. Hegarty: Without question.
Goodman: How afraid was Jose Padilla?
Dr. Hegarty: How to capture that in an apt metaphor? He was terrified. For him, the government was all-powerful. The government knew everything. The government knew everything that he was doing. His interrogators would find out every little detail that he revealed. And he would be punished for it.
"He was convinced that -- I mean, I think in words he endorsed -- even if he won his case, he lost, because he was going back to the brig if he managed to prevail at trial. And essentially, if hypothetically one were to offer him a really long prison sentence versus -- with a guarantee that he wouldn't go back to the brig -- versus risking going back to the brig, the chance that he might go back to the brig, he would take the prison sentence for a very long period of time. I think he would take almost anything rather than go back to that brig."
Goodman: What happened in the brig?
Dr. Hegarty: What happened at the brig was essentially the destruction of a human being's mind. That's what happened at the brig. His personality was deconstructed and reformed.
"And essentially, like many abuse victims, whether it's torture survivors or battered women or even children who are abused by parents, as long as the parents or the abuser is in control in their minds, essentially they identify with the primary aims of the abuser. And all abusers, whoever they are, have one absolute requirement, and that is that you keep their secret. I mean, it's common knowledge that people who abuse children or women will say, "Look at what you made me do," putting the blame on the victim, trying to instill guilt. "People will judge you. People will think you're crazy if you tell them about this. You will be an enemy. You will be seen as an enemy. You will be seen as a bad person if this comes out. There will be dire and terrible consequences, not only for you." Jose was very, very concerned that if torture allegations were made on his behalf, that somehow it would it interfere with the government's ability to detain people at Guantanamo, and this was something he couldn't sign onto. He was very identified with the goals of the government."
this destruction of Padilla's mind was no mistake- as Dr. Hegarty points out, "there was a quote in the Jacoby declaration that caught my attention as a forensic psychiatrist. And that -- essentially it says that the purpose of keeping Mr. Padilla isolated was to foster a sense of dependence on his interrogators and to essentially foreclose in his mind utterly any hope of rescue. And it makes reference to the fact that, given that people who have had contact with the criminal justice system will expect to see an attorney and be rescued by an attorney, they want to essentially disabuse him of the notion that he will ever be rescued. They want him to believe that he is in their power forever. And I believe, in a sense, they succeeded."
We must realize that this is not the justice system that we all prize- this was an American citizen who was tortured to insanity by his own government. Under substantial pressure from the Supreme Court, the Bush Administration agreed to let him stand trial- but he had already paid a larger cost than anything a jury would sentence him to: he has already lost his mind.