Doctors complicit in torture should face investigation

Medics who stood by and allowed people to be tortured during the "war on terror" should be subject to public scrutiny and criminal prosecution, says Freedom from Torture, formerly the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture.

President Obama's release of the secret 'torture memos' detailing the legal 'justification' for the Bush-era CIA interrogation programme, has led to a stream of demands that senior figures acting under the previous US administration should be investigated.

But near silence surrounds the role of doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists and other medical personnel whose cooperation provided much of the substance behind the US Department of Justice's authorisation of torture.

The MF, a leading rehabilitation centre in the UK which treats thousands of torture survivors every year, has called for full disclosure of the details relating to the role of the CIA's Office of Medical Services (OMS).

Dr William Hopkins, a consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist at the MF, said: "When doctors betray their professional oaths, ethical principles and international law, they cease to be doctors and become willing accomplices and collaborators with torturers."

Doctors found to have played any part in torture should be struck off, licenses to practise revoked and criminal investigations instigated to establish whether there are grounds for prosecution, according to the MF.

The 'torture memos' show that the advice provided by CIA medical officials was highly influential in the US Department of Justice's decision to authorise the use of techniques including waterboarding, dietary manipulation, cramped confinement, stress positions, sleep deprivation and walling.

Medical personnel at US-run detention centres were present to witness and oversee the use of these techniques from the outset, actively participating in designing interrogation procedures as well as monitoring their impact.

Dr Hopkins added: "The silence surrounding medical complicity in the use of torture during the 'war on terror' demands a robust response from the medical profession. The decision by President Obama not to prosecute members of the CIA makes it more incumbent on the medical profession to put its house in order."