JOSEF MENGELE a/k/a JOHN S. EDMONDSON
Islamic Community Net
January 8, 2006
 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/islamiccommunitynet/message/9083

Fresh medical atrocities have been perpetrated by hospital commandant John Edmondson against POWs tortured in the US concentration camp at Guantanamo. The criminal assaults mentioned in the articles are only those known to have been publicly admitted by commandant Edmonson himself. What other horrors remain to be revealed will only be learned in the course of time, if ever.

From the second article below:

"Dr David Nicholl, a consultant neurologist at Queen Elizabeth's hospital in Birmingham, is co-ordinating opposition to the Guantánamo doctors' actions from the international medical community. 'If I were to do what Edmondson describes in his statement, I would be referred to the General Medical Council and charged with assault,' he said."

Please note that 2 articles follow:

*U.S. crimes in Guantanamo grow more horrific
*Scandal of force-fed prisoners


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(1)

U.S. crimes in Guantanamo grow more horrific
Al Jazeera
1/8/2006
 http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=10472

Gitmo detainees participating in the current hunger strike routinely experience bleeding and nausea

In an interview with the weekly magazine Der Spiegel published days before her first visit to the United States, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Guantanamo detention camp should be closed and that Washington should find other ways of dealing with what it calls “terror suspects”.

“An institution like Guantanamo can and should not exist in the longer term,” Merkel said in an interview published on Saturday.

“Different ways and means must be found for dealing with these prisoners.”

Merkel plans to visit Washington next week, her first since becoming chancellor in November.

A Guantánamo Bay doctor has recently admitted that hunger strikers at the U.S. detention facility in Cuba are tied down and fed through nasal tubes.

Contrary to what the U.S. military claimed on Friday; that the number of Guantanamo Bay prisoners taking part in an ongoing hunger strike has fallen by more than half, new details have emerged, according The Observer, revealing the growing number of hunger strikers at Guantánamo Bay, and detailing how prisoners are being tied down and force-fed through tubes pushed down their nasal passages into their stomachs to keep them alive.

Gitmo detainees participating in the current hunger strike routinely experience bleeding and nausea, according to a sworn statement by the camp's chief doctor, seen by The Observer.

And according to Bill Goodman, legal director for the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, which represents many detainees, restrictions on information from the base made it impossible to know just how many detainees were participating.

"You can't believe them because they have an interest in trying to purvey this perspective that everything at Guantanamo is fine and everybody is wonderful. In order to do that, they have to say there aren't that many hunger strikers," he said.

Detainees' lawyers have repetitively accused the U.S. military of violently shoving tubes through the men's noses and into their stomachs without anesthesia or sedatives as part of the force-feeding process.

Captain John S Edmondson, commander of Guantanamo's hospital admitted that 'experience teaches us' that such symptom must be expected 'whenever nasogastric tubes are used'.

It is painful, Edmonson admits.

But Edmondson argued that the thick, 4.8mm diameter tubes tried previously to allow quicker feeding are not being used anymore and that a new 3mm tubes are 'soft and flexible', so they’re not that painful.

The London solicitors Allen and Overy, representing some of the hunger strikers, lodged a court action to be heard next week in California, where Edmondson is registered to practise.

They call on the state medical ethics board investigate him for 'unprofessional conduct' for allowing force-feeding.

The Observer obtained Edmonson's affirmation last week, as a Guantánamo spokesman confirmed that the number of hunger strikers has almost doubled since Christmas. Now 81 put of the 550 detainees held at Guantanamo jail are taking part in the hunger strike.

Last week, the U.S. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH signed a law denying the detainees their right to file habeas corpus petitions in the U.S. federal courts. And on Friday, the administration asked the Supreme Court to make this retroactive, “nullifying about 220 cases in which prisoners have contested the basis of their detention and the legality of pending trials by military commission,” The Observer stated.

According to Article 5 of the 1975 World Medical Association Tokyo Declaration, which U.S. doctors are legally bound to observe, doctors are prohibited from using force-feeding under any circumstances.

“If I were to do what Edmondson describes in his statement, I would be referred to the General Medical Council and charged with assault,” said Dr David Nicholl, a consultant neurologist at Queen Elizabeth's hospital in Birmingham.

 http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=10472


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(2)

Scandal of force-fed prisoners
Hunger strikers are tied down and fed through nasal tubes, admits Guantánamo Bay doctor
David Rose
The Observer
Sunday January 8, 2006
 http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,16937,1681736,00.html

New details have emerged of how the growing number of prisoners on hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay are being tied down and force-fed through tubes pushed down their nasal passages into their stomachs to keep them alive.

They routinely experience bleeding and nausea, according to a sworn statement by the camp's chief doctor, seen by The Observer.

'Experience teaches us' that such symptoms must be expected 'whenever nasogastric tubes are used,' says the affidavit of Captain John S Edmondson, commander of Guantánamo's hospital. The procedure - now standard practice at Guantánamo - 'requires that a foreign body be inserted into the body and, ideally, remain in it.' But staff always use a lubricant, and 'a nasogastric tube is never inserted and moved up and down. It is inserted down into the stomach slowly and directly, and it would be impossible to insert the wrong end of the tube.' Medical personnel do not insert nasogastric tubes in a manner 'intentionally designed to inflict pain.'

It is painful, Edmonson admits. Although 'non-narcotic pain relievers such as ibuprofen are usually sufficient, sometimes stronger drugs,' including opiates such as morphine, have had to be administered.

Thick, 4.8mm diameter tubes tried previously to allow quicker feeding, so permitting guards to keep prisoners in their cells for more hours each day, have been abandoned, the affidavit says. The new 3mm tubes are 'soft and flexible'.

The London solicitors Allen and Overy, who represent some of the hunger strikers, have lodged a court action to be heard next week in California, where Edmondson is registered to practise. They are asking for an order that the state medical ethics board investigate him for 'unprofessional conduct' for agreeing to the force-feeding.

Edmonson's affidavit, in response to a lawsuit on behalf of detainees on hunger strike since last August, was obtained last week by The Observer, as a Guantánamo spokesman confirmed that the number of hunger strikers has almost doubled since Christmas, to 81 of the 550 detainees. Many have been held since the camp opened four years ago this month, although they not been charged with any crime, nor been allowed to see any evidence justifying their detention.

This and other Guantánamo lawsuits now face extinction. Last week, President Bush signed into law a measure removing detainees' right to file habeas corpus petitions in the US federal courts. On Friday, the administration asked the Supreme Court to make this retroactive, so nullifying about 220 cases in which prisoners have contested the basis of their detention and the legality of pending trials by military commission.

Although some prisoners have had to be tied down while being force-fed, 'only one patient' has had to be immobilised with a six-point restraint, and 'only one' passed out. 'In less than 10 cases have trained medical personnel had to use four-point restraint in order to achieve insertion.' Edmondson claims the actual feeding is voluntary. During Ramadan, tube-feeding takes place before dawn.

Article 5 of the 1975 World Medical Association Tokyo Declaration, which US doctors are legally bound to observe through their membership of the American Medical Association, states that doctors must not undertake force-feeding under any circumstances. Dr David Nicholl, a consultant neurologist at Queen Elizabeth's hospital in Birmingham, is co-ordinating opposition to the Guantánamo doctors' actions from the international medical community. 'If I were to do what Edmondson describes in his statement, I would be referred to the General Medical Council and charged with assault,' he said.

· Yesterday the new German Chancellor Angela Merkel became the latest leader to condemn the United States for practices at the prison. In a magazine interview days before her first visit as premier to the US, Merkel said Washington should close Guantánamo and find other ways of dealing with terror suspects.

 http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,16937,1681736,00.html

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