Details Emerge About Padilla’s Treatment in Confinement

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


As you likely know, the trial of Chicago gang member and alleged terrorist Jose Padilla is going on now.

On Tuesday, his jailers were forced to testify about the conditions of Padilla’s secretive three-year-eight-month confinement in a naval brig as part of a hearing on whether or not Padilla is fit to stand trial; it is significant testimony because it’s the first time any of Padilla’s captors have been forced to speak publicly.

What was revealed:

– Padilla sometimes slept on a steel bunk without a mattress.

– The windows in Padilla’s 80-square-foot cell were blackened so no natural light was able to enter the cell.

– Padilla was given no timepiece, leading to an almost complete inability to tell time.

– The electric light in Padilla’s cell could only be activated by jailers and was frequently unavailable for unspecified reasons.

Padilla has alleged he was tortured while in military captivity. That has yet to be proven true or false. In fact, the hearing was limited in scope, and didn’t cover most aspects of Padilla’s detention, for example, how he was fed, how he was interrogated, etc.

In the hearing on Padilla’s competency to stand trial, government doctors and defense doctors differed on their evaluations of the Padilla’s mental health. Read the opinions in this New York Times story.

Mother Jones covered Padilla’s indictment after more than three years of detainment here, wondered if Padilla is anything more than the government’s perfect fall guy here, and discussed the plight of Padilla’s lawyer here.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate