As the notorious experiments in concentration camps by Nazi doctors showed, doctors who ignore informed consent can be responsible for atrocities. The latest instance comes from Baghdad, where psychiatric patients are apparently being conscripted as suicide bombers. The acting director of al-Rashad psychiatric hospital, Sahi Abub Al-Maliki, is being questioned. Two of them blew up in a crowded market on February 1, killing about 100 people. It was the worst attack in Baghdad in the last six months.

Early reports asserted that the two women had Down syndrome. Using mentally handicapped women has obvious advantages for al-Qaeda. They are less likely to be stopped or searched and they will readily obey instructions. In the recent attack, one woman was given a backpack will with explosives and ball bearings and the other a suicide vest packed with explosives. They were detonated by remote control. The London Times saw photographs of the women’s severed heads – both appeared to have Down syndrome.

However, the latest theory is that they were psychiatric patients. One of the bombers had been treated for schizophrenia and depression as an outpatient at Ibn-Rushd hospital. She had told doctors she had been hearing voices telling her to kill herself. The other woman also had a history of mental illness.
The director of al-Rashad, Dr Ibrahim Mohammed Ajil, was gunned down on his way to work in December. One theory is that that he may have been murdered because he had refused to cooperate with al-Qaeda.

"We believe Al-Qaeda may have approached them individually, away from their families, and recruited them for these barbaric attacks," US military spokesman Rear Admiral Gregory Smith told Agence France Presse. He believes that their files and contact details may have been leaked by hospital staff.  ~ AP, Feb 18; London Times, Feb 12; AFP, Feb 19