Screen shot of Real News coverage of the Mitchell/Jessen confidential legal settlement.Ten years ago Murat Kurnaz, a Turk from Bremen, wrote these words, in his book Five Years of My Life, an innocent man in Guantanamo. “We have to describe how the doctors came only to check whether we were dead or could stand to be tortured for a little longer.” The words shocked at the time, but since then the appalling details of US torture practices as part of the ”war on terror” and the involvement of the medical profession are well known – published by the US Senate as well as by several of the men who were subjected to them.
Today everyone knows about US torture. Everyone knows it is unethical, illegal, unconstitutional. But the fight for accountability only inches forward. Today everyone knows about US torture. Everyone knows it is unethical, illegal, unconstitutional. But the fight for accountability only inches forward.
Two weeks ago in a landmark case against impunity for torture, two US military psychologists reached a confidential settlement with tortured former prisoners rather than face a jury trial which would have begun this week. (ie Sept.5) For many months lawyers for the two men, Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell, had made multiple attempts to have the case dismissed.
