As trips to the dentist go, it was straightforward: José Padilla needed root canal treatment. But because he was classed as an ”enemy combatant” being held without charge in military detention as a suspected terrorist, preparations for the visit were anything but simple.
First a small door at the bottom of his locked cell number 103 was opened and he was told to put his bare feet through it so that they could be shackled. Then his hands were manacled through a separate panel.
Next military guards, with their identities disguised behind camouflaged uniforms and riot helmets, entered the cell and locked his handcuffs on to a metal belt around his waist. They rendered him deaf and blind by putting headphones and blackout goggles on him.
Finally, he was marched down the corridors of the Naval Weapons Station in Charleston, South Carolina, to have his teeth seen to.
Video footage of the bizarre extent of the preparations made to prepare Padilla for his dental appointment has been released to the prisoner’s lawyers and seen by the New York Times, which revealed the details on Monday. It gives the first insight into the extra-judicial world of military detention in which Padilla, an United States citizen originally from Brooklyn who converted to Islam, was held under the executive powers of the US presidency for more than three years.
He was arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare airport in June 2002 and initially accused of being on an al-Qaeda mission to plant a radioactive ”dirty bomb” in an American city. But earlier this year his status was changed from enemy combatant to criminal terrorist suspect and he was released from military detention into a federal prison in Miami.
The change happened just as the Supreme Court was about to consider whether Bush had the right to hold an US citizen arrested on US soil indefinitely without charge. He is now awaiting trial next month on charges of conspiracy and that he gave material support to terrorists. Both charges carry maximum penalties of 15 years.
Padilla’s lawyers, armed with the video footage of his dental trip, have struck back, with a legal suit arguing that he was subjected to inhumane treatment amounting to torture during his military detention and that this has made him unfit to stand trial.
The lawyers say that he was held in isolation throughout the three-and-a-half years and that during interrogations he was hooded, threatened with execution and given a ”truth serum” of an LSD-like chemical.
The US government has denied all allegations of mistreatment. ”His basic needs were met in a conscientious manner, including halaal food, clothing, sleep and daily medical assessment,” it said in court papers. – Guardian Unlimited Â