By Jane SuttonT hu Feb 22, 8:34 PM ET
Former "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla is mentally unfit to stand trial on terrorism charges and physically unable to tell his lawyers what happened to him in a U.S. military prison, doctors who examined him for the defense said in court on Thursday.
The doctors testified that Padilla, held by presidential order for 3-1/2 years in a military brig without being charged, is also unable to tell his lawyers anything about the time he spent in Afghanistan and Egypt, where the government alleges he conspired with Islamist terrorists to maim and murder people.
If asked to review taped conversations that will be used as evidence, he breaks into a sweat, hunches over and rocks back and forth, the doctors said.
"He hits a stone wall and his logic shuts down," said Dr. Angela Hegarty, a neuropsychiatrist who examined Padilla in his Miami jail cell. "His overwhelming anxiety interferes with his reasoning."
Padilla, a 36-year-old U.S. citizen, is scheduled to go to trial in Miami in April on charges that he was part of a North American support cell that provided money and recruits to global Islamist extremists.
He was originally arrested in Chicago in 2002 and President George W. Bush ordered the military to hold him as an "enemy combatant" after accusing him of plotting to set off a radioactive bomb. But he was never charged with that.
While a challenge to the president's authority to hold him without charges was pending, Padilla was indicted in Florida and transferred to civilian custody.
His lawyers said Padilla was tortured and drugged during the years he was held for interrogation at the military brig prior to being charged in the civilian court.
Hegarty and a clinical forensic psychologist who examined Padilla for the defense, Dr. Patricia Zaph, said he was mentally impaired, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and convinced he should help the government rather than his own lawyers.
A Bureau of Prisons doctor who examined him at the court's request, however, found him fit for trial.
Prosecutors deny Padilla was abused and accuse the defense of raising the mental health issue in order to turn the proceedings into "a referendum on his past treatment in military custody."
U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke has ordered some of Padilla's military jailers to appear in court for questioning when the hearing resumes on Monday.
Padilla himself denies he has painful memories, depression or any problems at all and believes he will be sent back to the brig to die there regardless of what happens in court, the defense doctors testified.
They said his treatment in the brig also caused him to develop pronounced facial tics. Asked by a prosecutor if "engaging in violent jihad" might cause someone to develop tics, Hegarty acknowledged that was possible.
Padilla's face twitched periodically but he showed no obvious signs of distress as the doctors and lawyers discussed him. He smiled and nodded at his mother when she blew him a kiss from the back of the court room.
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