Doctors who treated patients in Guantanamo Bay have been accused of turning the cold shoulder to the physical and mental abuse that happened at the base in Cuba.

These abuses included physical torture in the form of sexual assault, beatings, and the threat of rape. Many inmates at the detention center have also inflicted self-harm in numerous ways and have shown signs of serious psychiatric illness.

A number of inmates attempted suicide to escape the torture, and one Afghani prisoner had such outrageous behavior as a drug addict and schizophrenic that commanders at the detention facility wanted to send him back to his home country. The United States Army said that close to 100 prisoners had some sort of psychiatric illness like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or severe depression.

The report that made these allegations was published in the journal Public Library of Science Medicine and said that in addition to doctors not properly reporting the abuse that was going on, the staff at Guantanamo also took the medical records of patients and used them against them. For example, one man with chronic back pain was forced to sit in uncomfortable, stressful positions for long periods of time.

"The full extent of medical complicity in US torture practices will not be known until there is a thorough, impartial investigation", said the reports.