Padilla’s accusations of being “torture” was detailed in a filing in the Southern District of Florida with excerpts posted here.

The torture was specified as -

1) being placed in solitary confinement
2) being deprived of a mattress and personal articles
3) being deprived of sleep due to the lack of said mattress
4) being subjected to different room temperatures and “noxious fumes” that made his eyes water and nose run
5) being placed in “stress positions” (unspecified)
6) being told by interrogators that he was in a different location than he was
7) being told at one point that he would be cut by a knife and had alcohol poured on his wounds.

Those are the allegations from his filing.

Denying Padilla counsel and due process was and is inexcusable.

As for torture, the specific actions taken against him as alleged (they are unproved and the accused have not been heard on the matter given that the court ruled against the motion without entertaining the allegations) simply are not torture. Torture is now a word that is sliding into “any discomfort experienced by a person held against his/her will” which denigrates the word and denigrates those who have actually been subjected to torture.