More cognitive dissonance on torture: Jose Padilla

from the wapo...

sanford e. seymour, the brig's technical director...

Limited by a court ruling to what he had discussed with a psychologist evaluating Padilla's competence for trial, Seymour's testimony was sketchy but ran contrary to some of Padilla's most serious allegations.

"I told him I knew of no physical abuse," Seymour testified.

forensic psychologists for the defense...

A forensic psychiatrist and a forensic psychologist hired by the defense last week testified that when asked for information about the brig or the subjects he may have been interrogated about there, Padilla gets tense, exhibits facial tics and "shuts down."

"He would say, 'Please, please, please don't make me do this,' in a very plaintive manner," Angela Hegarty, the forensic psychiatrist, testified.

One of the lawyers, Andrew Patel, testified that even "softball" questions about the case could elicit pop-eyed revulsion from his client, and that he has been unwilling even to listen to the taped conversations at the core of the case against him.

"We tried everything we could imagine" to get him to help them review the evidence, but Padilla refused, Patel testified.

brig psychologist...

While defense lawyers have argued that the isolation and other aspects of his treatment have made Padilla unable to help his attorneys, a brig psychologist who talked to Padilla at the beginning of his detention in June 2002 and then again nearly two years later, noted "no remarkable changes" in his demeanor.

"He was responsive to me," said Craig S. Noble, a brig psychologist, who spoke with Padilla through openings the cell door. "He smiled."

he smiled... see...? what more do you need to know...?

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