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The Current Transcript for April 19, 2018

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

We've noticed this trend for a long time and it's just the way it is here, and if you can intervene and you prevent one trauma that's actually a good thing.

LAURA LUNCH: The trend according to Halifax Dr. Rob. Green is what he says is the increasing number of drunk drivers showing up injured in his E.R. after an accident, and what Dr. Green is prescribing is a break with the past granting doctors the permission to inform police when they treat someone who is intoxicated. That's a clear violation of patient-doctor confidentiality. That is in half an hour from now. After that speedy justice or simple retribution.

SOUNDCLIP

Well, any Iraqi is there, so the defeat is sure. It's definite. We've finished the job in a very short time. It is within reach.

LL: When Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi declared that ISIS in his country was defeated, it may have been the end of the battle but it was just the beginning of a steady march through Iraq's courtrooms of the thousands accused of being part of ISIS. Trials have been quick, death sentences handed down to many leading some to question whether this really is justice especially for those who may be victims of ISIS themselves. But first up, Stormy Daniels and a portrait of the man she says threatened her when she planned to reveal her alleged affair with Donald Trump.

SOUNDCLIP

Stormy, you recently sat down with the forensic artists who created a sketch of the alleged suspect, based on your memory from that day, and now you're ready to reveal that sketch for the first time. Can we take a look at that?

LL: So we begin today with a picture and ask not whether it's worth a thousand words but whether it's worth the paper it's drawn upon. I'm Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current.

Back To Top »

To catch a criminal, police sketches can be useful — or hilarious

Guests: Mike Arntfield, Diana Trebcov

SOUNDCLIP

I was in a parking lot go into a fitness class with my infant daughter, getting all the stuff out, and a guy walked up on me and said to me "Leave Trump alone. Forget the story." And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said "A beautiful little girl. It'll be a shame if something happened to her mom," And then she was gone.

LL: That is Stormy Daniels with one of a series of bombshell allegations from her 60 Minutes interview last month. She said that incident happened back in 2011 when she was considering selling a story about a sexual encounter with Donald Trump to a magazine. Tuesday on the program, The View, Daniels and her lawyer Michael Avenatti released a forensic sketch of the man she said threatened her.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: To your recollection is that the person that threatened you?

STORMY DANIEL: Absolutely.

VOICE 1: Looks exactly like that person?

VOICE 2: I mean it's obvious she just didn't sit down with the sketch artist and fabricate this. This is a very detailed sketch and it was created by a woman by name of Lois Gibson. She has the world record for the most identifications. She works with the FBI and law enforcement all around the country. And she found Stormy to be very credible and is highly confidential sketch and we hope that it's...

VOICE 3: [Cross talk]... out of memory and this was seven- How many years ago?

STORMY DANIEL: It was seven years ago.

VOICE 3: And you remember to that that detail. I mean he looks like an actor.

STORMY DANIEL: That's why he stood out, because I thought honestly that he was you know sort of handsome.

LL: The sketch quickly went viral on social media. It prompted thousands of amateur sleuths to weigh in on who the suspect could be. And inspired this bit from late night host Stephen Colbert.

SOUNDCLIP

There he is. The man who threatened her. The lovechild of Willem Dafoe, Tom Brady and Bon Jovi.

[Laughter]

And if being a goon doesn't work walk out he could become a model for Abercrombie and Fitch.

LL: Now if you were on Twitter you probably also saw people saying the sketch look like Matt Damon, Michael C. Hall, Tony Robbins and even a young Brad Pitt. But joking aside, the fact that one sketch can look so much like so many people is raising some questions about the value of forensic sketches in investigations and we'll get to that in a moment. But first I'm joined by one of Canada's top sketch artist Diana Trebcov is a forensic artist who has worked on more than 200 cold cases worldwide and she's with me here in our current studio. Hello.

DIANA TREBCOV: Hi. Thank you for having me.

LL: What do you think of the Sketch Released by Stormy Daniels?

DIANA TREBCOV: I think the sketch's greet. The quality is high end. You can tell when you look at it he's got high cheekbones. He's got the smirk on his face. His eyes are intense. He's fit. You can tell he's fit, the nice hair. The eyes are the mirror of the soul. It's a very good drawing and Lois is very competent. She did a really good job.

LL: You know her.

DIANA TREBCOV: Yes.

LL: Okay. What do you make of the controversy of the discussion that's arisen around it?

DIANA TREBCOV: You know when it comes to anybody putting down stuff I just turned the noise off and concentrate on what this is really about and it's about a threat. Someone's life being threatened and it's more serious than people saying it looks like this celebrity or that celebrity. That's just noise and we just turn it off and do our job.

LL: Okay let's talk about you doing your job. How do you translate a victim's description of a suspect into an illustration?

DIANA TREBCOV: Okay first of all what I can explain is because this one was seven years so I can explain how I would do it. There are certain triggers like everyone if I asked you when where were you when Princess Diana died or when you heard about 9/11, I'm sure you would remember right away. There are certain triggers when there are something dramatic and traumatic goes into your brain and it brings you back to that time. So we talk about the weather, what you were wearing, certain things that happen that day. If someone is threatened that image will burn in their head. They'll remember that face. Anything that's scary it stays with you. And so I'd sit down with her and I would look into her eyes and at first make sure that I felt she was credible and we get this trust thing going. And we would talk and when I felt that she is relaxed I'd pull out some catalogues that I have and I'd let her go through them and take her time, and I never rush this process. So she would pick out the set of eyes, nose, ears, mouth, the facial shape.

LL: And the catalogues, they are pictures of others? What are they?

DIANA TREBCOV: They are pictures of eyes, nose, months.

LL: Okay elements of a sketch. Okay.

DIANA TREBCOV: Yes. And then I would put the whole face together and have it on a board and be seen opposite from her so she wouldn't see what I was trying. When I was about 60-70 percent done then I would slowly show where the drawing really. I just swish it right by her. And then I'd put it down, so she’d look at it and I could tell the expression on her face how close I am. So if it's a little 'Oh my God' a scared look then I know I'm getting closer.

LL: But why do you show it to them only briefly?

DIANA TREBCOV: Because it's 60 percent finished and so I wait till I am hundred percent finished before I show it. But I want to make sure we're on the same page that she sees in her head is what I have down on paper. So I can see the expression if I'm getting closer. If someone was threatened about not being around anymore, that person is scary to them. So when you show it they'll be like, they're really taken back a bit. And so the expression on their face would let me know how coarse I am and I keep going and at the end I showed them. And if they say he looks like 70 percent not really a hundred percent what I had pictured in my head, then I wouldn't release it. I'd only release it when it's an exact.

LL: Well you talked about the triggers I guess to try to place them back in the moment that this happened. But what other kinds of questions do you ask in order to be able to actually draw the features?

DIANA TREBCOV: Like the lighting, what the weather was like? Was the person- were they sacary? What was their expression like? Smells. Like did he smell? Like different things, different sensors and things will come back.

LL: Why are forensic sketches a useful investigative tool?

DIANA TREBCOV: Oh outstanding investigative tool. It helps catch criminals. I did one in a bank robbery and they called me in and the teller was all shaken up because someone pointed a gun at her. So she needed some time to relax and then they did the drying.

LL: And did they catch the guy in that case?

DIANA TREBCOV: When you put the drawing out there, it's not like okay here's the drying up that's the person that's go across them. It doesn't work that way. It's just we are the middle man and we're just helping with the investigation. So the drawing is out there. The image is out there, therefore the drawing that Lois did, the case is now current. Everyone's talking about it and if someone did threaten seven years ago, they would be bragging about in a bar to some friends 'Oh I did this' when they're drinking. And then later on this comes up and someone's like 'but wait a minute there's one hundred and thirty one thousand dollar reward' people you know they get money hungry out there and they made rat the person out. So it's someone knows something always when it comes to stuff like this and someone would come forward helpfully.

LL: So you have more than 200 cases. Do you have any idea of the success rate of the cases you've worked on?

DIANA TREBCOV: It's a good amount. I'm not exactly sure. There's a lot that are still pending, ongoing because I put faces on skulls, I do face reconstructions, surveillance video drawings, age progressions where people are missing 11 years were still searching for human trafficking victims.

LL: So now as with everything else there are computers that are involved in this. How has digital technology influenced forensic art?

DIANA TREBCOV: It's another tool. It all comes down to- my teacher always taught me you can build a house without knowing the foundation. You have to really know what goes on in the face behind it that just [unintelligible] to the face. As long as you know the face and aging techniques then computers are another tool. I do everything by hand.

LL: Okay but do you think the computers actually can help.

DIANA TREBCOV: It can if there is a good forensic artist buying a computer. Yes.

LL: Because it sounds almost to me like you partly artist but you're also partly psychologist. You have to be able to read the people you're talking to.

DIANA TREBCOV: That's a really good point. It's about body language and the eyes. Like I said the eyes are the mirror of the soul. The Iris tells all and body language. When you're sitting in with a witness there, it depends they give their all curled up, cross-legged, all nervous, you know fidgety, you can tell there are some not right.

LL: And how often have you come across that in the times that you have been a sketcher?

DIANA TREBCOV: I came across there was attempt abduction and there was a young boy and I sat with him, and I wasn't too sure because he was young. I did the drawing and then at the end he said 'Oh you got him. That's him 100 percent'. And I was like 'Well do you want me change something?' "No you got him.' And it was through the police. They hired me for that, that was years ago. But the point is it end up being a fabrication after. So when someone says it's 100 percent and you have to fix anything, then it was made up, most likely was made up. So it's good to have that judge of character and listen to your inner gut voice you can usually tell who's off.

LL: Well thanks for your insights and to how you do things. that is really interesting.

DIANA TREBCOV: Thank you.

LL: Diana Trebcov is one of Canada's top forensic artists. She was with me in our Toronto studio. Now you just heard from a police sketch artist but even simple drives have been credited with helping solve crimes. Earlier this year the police department in Lancaster Pennsylvania shared a simple sketch drawn by a witness. It's about as basic as they come; dots for eyes, upside down 7 for the nose, a small straight line for the mouth. The Washington Post described it as a triangle with hair or a strawberry wearing a hat. It's hard to imagine such a rudimentary drawing could crack a case. But listen to Lieutenant Bill Hickey tell the story.

SOUNDCLIP

LL: We have a fairly popular farmer's market downtown Lancaster and one of the stand-holders stepped away to attend to something and somebody else stepped in and impersonated the stand-holder and stole some cash from the stand. A witness saw this and have confronted the person who then fled, after being confronted. And the witness would speak with the officer and this witness had some artistic talent and actually provided an amateur sketch. But it kind of captured something about this guy, the this person looked to witness. And there were things about this drawing that in combination with everything else; the method of stealing from a downtown business, the physical description of the person who was small and thin and had Asian characteristics, and then a drawing. One of a detective sergeants looked at all and said 'I think that's Huang Wen. I dealt with them on a previous theft downtown and the physical descriptions seem even the sketch reminds me of him.' So it was one of those things were you know it did to the public but also was one of those things that just kind of triggered something in one of our own detectives and said 'I think that's Huang Wen.' So running with that information, we prepared a photo array, we had previous photos for Mr. Huang from prior arrests, and we put together with seven other random people that had similar characteristics and the witness was able to pick him out from line up. We prepared a warrant and then he was in custody later on that week. We rested I think Friday night that week.

LL: That is, as they pronounced in the US, Leutnant Bill Hickey with The Lancaster Police and you can see a photo of the sketch on our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Forensic artists have been using eyewitness accounts to sketch and sculpt faces of suspected criminals for many many years. To learn more about the long history of forensic art, I'm joined by Mike Arntfield. He teaches criminology at Western University. Mike Arntfield joins us from London Ontario hello.

MIKE ARNTFIELD: Morning.

LL: I want to hear about the early days of forensic art. But first of all what did you think when you saw that Stormy Daniels had hired a forensic artist to draw the man she says threatened her?

MIKE ARNTFIELD: It's not the first time that someone has retained their own forensic artist rather than going through the police. Obviously she retained a fairly high profile artist. You have to question I think the timing of it, and one of the things that jumped out to me was while people are sort of lauding it as being very detailed, as we've seen in the past we may have to also question the excess of the detail especially seven years later that detail, and people are marking it and who it looks like. But I think at this point it really is just a matter of generating publicity. I don't think that this will generate any viable leads.

LL: But why? I mean you've heard our previous guest talk about in these moments of real trauma and fright people actually have vivid memories. So why you question that?

MIKE ARNTFIELD: Well no. The courts have been clear on that, and countless studies. I mean forensic artists are not accredited criminologist or psychologist. The reality is that human memory is fraught with problems. We don't remember with explicit details necessarily, certainly not the degree of detail they'd like to hear. We remember with emotions. We remember with, as your last guest said, other senses including scent and sound. So I mean the Thomas Sophonow inquiry in Canada years ago raised questions about the validity of eyewitness recounts when it comes to recognising photos.

LL: Can you quickly remind us of that case?

MIKE ARNTFIELD: In that case that's the murder of a Winnipeg donut shop attendant, a coffee shop attendants and there are significant subsequent problems with how the suspect was identified through photo or race, and that now has led to changes among police services in terms of how photos are shown, the order in which stories are shown, how many photos are shown because there are inherent problems with recognising faces much like colours. And again the detail of vehicles has been an issue in Canada most notably in the [unintelligible].

LL: What do we know about the origins of forensic art in police work?

MIKE ARNTFIELD: Well it sort of came about piecemeal. There's again some nineteenth century sort of stats added if you will. There are some criminologists in the 19th century who begin inventorying certain eyes hade, certain nose shapes, studying prison populations. And that catalogue, if you will, that fixed choice menu of facial features, it's really sort of prejudicial because it's based solely on the already convicted offenders. What then happens is by the mid-20th century in the mid-50s you have seen it in Western, which was at the time the leading firearms manufacturer for police departments, comes out with what they called the identikit which was a series of transparencies. I talked about this in a book called Murder City. It was first used in Canada in London here and most notably used in the U.S. in the case of Richard Speck in 1966 and was successful. Because what happened was, as rudimentary as it sounds, it's a Mr. Potato Head where you have a face and just plot certain eyes or a nose or mouth shaped arm to this transparency. But because it was sufficiently generic and allowed for a certain degree of interpretation much like that very amateur sketch in the Lancaster cases you just featured, it really resonated with people. I mean there is not, like we've seen in the Stormy Daniels case, so much detail that someone may be inclined to say 'Well that looks like so and so except for' and then fill in the blank. It was generic enough that we see that a lot of people were able to interpret it as being sufficiently like someone they already had in mind. And it led to an arrest very quickly which for the next 30-40 years the identikit becomes sort of the gold standard again rather than actually hand drawing someone.

LL: So, nowadays I wonder how effective forensic art is in catching criminals.

MIKE ARNTFIELD: It can be very effective. I should stress that but it's not necessarily much like- What I told my students and what I see in my public lectures is it's much like what a criminal profile, a psychological profile is not necessarily the first thing you would go to an investigation. This is sort of a second or even third tier in the investigation where conventional methods have not necessarily proven useful. And now you start to engage subject matter experts whether it's a profiler whether it's a sketch artist in order to generate new methodologies to bring forward. It's one of the many steps in investigation. And as your last guest recently said you can't be arrested on the basis of a sketch sketch. A sketch is just an ability or one way that we would narrow the haystack of release that publicly and so to generate some names develop or operate a tip line, get people coming forward and then you have maybe have ideally some names to work with. But you're not going to immediately be arrested just on the basis of the sketch.

LL: In that sense, and you've looked at a lot of cases in Canada, can you give me some cases where forensic out why is useful in getting to an arrest?

MIKE ARNTFIELD: Well there's lots. Unfortunately the ones we know best are the ones where there's actually wrongful arrest based on a sketch, or where the sketch has ultimately proven to be a misdirect. As your last guest said, a lot of people meet with an artist and unfortunately the "victim" or "witness" has not been properly vetted by police and the sketch then goes public. And what happens is you have people looking for the wrong individual, much like you mentioned a [unintelligible]. We have descriptions of vehicles. The D.C. sniper case has another notable one in the U.S. where the description is completely wrong and you have people looking in the wrong direction.

LL: Okay. Did you have any cases where it actually was helpful?

MIKE ARNTFIELD: I can think of one in London most recently. It was about 10 years ago where, yes, there was a sketch release, again very simple, not overly detailed, widely interpretive. Someone came forward. What would normally be used for is a stranger on stranger case where again there is no idea who this person is. There is no short list of suspects and what happened was a female was sexually assaulted in public by someone hiding behind a head. Really sounds cliché but it happened. And then what happens is a sketch is made, released, someone says it looks like my neighbour and he's also a little bit off. And the police investigate, ultimately a DNA sample is obtained from this individual and it matches the crime scene. An arrest was made and the conviction registry is surely thereafter.

LL: So we just have a few seconds left. In terms of criminal investigative tools where would you put forensic art?

MIKE ARNTFIELD: That's tough. On a scale of one to ten I would say of conventional methods of [unintelligible] in the first 48 hours, it would be - if there is a credible victim or witness - seven out of ten.

LL: Michael Arntfield, thank you very much.

MIKE ARNTFIELD: Anytime. Thanks for having me.

LL: Mike Arntfield teaches criminology at Western University. His latest book is called Mad City: The True Story of Campus Murders that America Forgot. And he was in London Ontario. And for more images of forensic sketches you're going to head to our Web site cbc.ca/thecurrent. CBC News is next then for one Nova Scotia physician the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship is clashing with the responsibility he feels to protect his community. Should doctors tell police if their patients have been drinking and driving? I'm Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. You're listening to The Current.

Back To Top »

Should physicians tell police if their patients have been drinking and driving?

Guests: Robert Green, Merril Pauls, Shawn Whatley

LL: Hello I'm Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current still to come.

[Music: Theme]

LL: First came victory, now Justice. Iraq says that after more than three years of combat its war with ISIS is over. Now the government is prosecuting tens of thousands. We'll find out why human rights advocates fear the legal process could easily veer from justice to revenge. But first balancing patient's privacy with public safety.

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[Sound: Siren]

LL: The rush to get injured patients to hospital after a car or motorcycle accident can be chaotic. But some emergency room doctors say they see a disturbing pattern in the middle of all that turmoil. More and more injured drivers they say are drunk. In treating them E.R. doctors end up doing blood alcohol tests that prove it. But privacy laws prohibit doctors from sharing those tests with police. And research shows that many of those drunk drivers are never charged. It's a dilemma that weighs on E.R. physicians such as Robert Green. He practices in Halifax. He's also the medical director of Trauma Nova Scotia where he researches conviction rates among injured drunk drivers. Robert Green is in our Halifax studio. Hello.

ROBERT GREEN: Good morning.

LL: How often do you treat injured drunk drivers in the emergency room where you work?

ROBERT GREEN: Every day. Really looking at our numbers that we track, we see approximately 200 and 250 drivers of major motor vehicle crashes per year and a third of those have alcohol involved.

LL: And take us through how you typically learn that an injured person is drunk.

ROBERT GREEN: If there are major trauma part of our protocol with the Trauma Nova Scotia standard blood panel and included in the blood panel is a Serum alcohol level. It's very important to manage the patient, poly trauma patient, with every piece of information that you can get. And sometimes patients have head injuries. And if there's alcohol on board that certainly impacts the way we assess the patient because it decreases their level of consciousness. So we measure it on every trauma patient.

LL: Right. So we're not talking about just your observation of these people. It does actually prove through the blood test.

ROBERT GREEN: That's right. That's right.

LL: And how often are those drivers actually charged?

ROBERT GREEN: Well we built on research that was done by my colleagues here in Halifax. It was published in 2012 and in Nova Scotia using data that's probably 10 years old now. It was one in four one, in five to one in four actually had any any charges laid. We went on because we have a research program on this and looked at the world's literature on this and it's even worse across the world. The median conviction rate is 13 percent.

LL: So within Canada. How do those numbers sit with you?

ROBERT GREEN: It's very uncomfortable it's very uncomfortable for not only me but all of my colleagues, the nurses in the emergency department and the ICU paramedic colleagues, we all know. We know who's intoxicated and who's not. And it's very difficult having no legal repercussions in these patients.

LL: Do you ever have to treat both a drunk driver and at the same time the people that that driver's hurt?

ROBERT GREEN: Yes very commonly.

LL: What's that like?

ROBERT GREEN: Difficult. Absolutely. You know we try to separate ourselves from the social circumstances going on and do the best that we can for each patient no matter what brought them to our attention. But I'd be lying to say that it doesn't take its toll and see the carnage that actually happens because of intoxicated driving.

LL: What do you do? You just kind of put an emotional shield up and say I'm going to do my job?

ROBERT GREEN: Absolutely and that's what we have to do. But we do discuss it you know. The nurses will come out of the room and say 'you know he was drunk' and like 'yes' and we'll have that conversation about e still have to do everything that we can. And it's actually even worse for me because I am an ICU physician as well. And so these patients who end up much of the time in ICU. I look after both them and their family members as in navigating that critical care, life support part of a lot of these patients.

LL: What is it that prevents you from telling police when an injured driver is actually drunk?

ROBERT GREEN: Privacy. We really we really protect patients privacy and that's something that's very important to physicians. We sometimes, not all the time, police will accompany the patient. But we have no no means of telling them that this patient that you've helped pick up from the side of the road, that you've come in with the patient in the ambulance is intoxicated.

LL: But is there a legal way to do it?

ROBERT GREEN: For us to tell them?

LL: Well for the police to be able to get the information.

ROBERT GREEN: Yes they have to. There certainly is and there's a legal blood alcohol procedure that's pretty standard across. The problem is that it has to initiated by the police. So if the police are there and they don't ask for this special kit to be completed and then we don't do it.

LL: Are there that many cases where you actually know a patient is drunk but the police don't?

ROBERT GREEN: Yes.

LL: How many?

ROBERT GREEN: The majority.

LL: And is that because they're not coming in with the driver or they were just preoccupied with getting them treatment and they didn't notice? How does that happen?

ROBERT GREEN: Both you know both. In fact she was teaching a trauma course in Dartmouth Nova Scotia yesterday and I discussed this very issue with all of the 20 attendees. And you know everyone thought this was a major problem. So I asked them what was their experience with the police. And you know many said that the police are choosing not to accompany the patient to the emergency department. Others said, and one particularly said they seemed to look for ways of not to complete this. Not to this test.

LL: That's interesting I wonder why.

ROBERT GREEN: I don't know.

LL: So I can hear that this weighs on you quite heavily. Patient-doctor confidentiality is a bedrock of our system. What do you think should happen? What should change?

ROBERT GREEN: Well I think there's two things that need to change. You know immediately we need to use the tools that we have right now. So I think both physicians and police need to get on the same page and get these legal blood alcohol kits done. If that's not sufficient, and I have my doubts that it would be, then there needs to be a discussion about the the benefits of patient privacy in the greater context of public health public good in these cases.

LL: And carving out an exception to it then?

ROBERT GREEN: Absolutely.

LL: Robert Green, thank you for your time.

ROBERT GREEN: Thank you.

LL: Robert Green is an emergency doctor in Halifax and the medical director of trauma in Nova Scotia. He was in our Halifax studio. Emergency doctors are torn over what should take precedence, patient privacy or public safety as you heard there. Dr. Mirrel Pauls is an emergency physician and a medical ethicist in Winnipeg. And in the interest of transparency I'll mention he's married to a CBC reporter and Dr. Shawn Whatley is the president of the Ontario Medical Association. He was also an ER chief at a large Ontario Hospital. He is in Mount Albert Ontario today. Hello to you both.

MERRIL PAULS: Good morning.

LL: Dr. Merril Pauls let's start with you. How similar is your experience to that of Robert Green and Halifax?

MERRIL PAULS: Very similar. I do a similar job here in Winnipeg. I treat trauma patients every day and we see most of the significant motor vehicle collisions in the emergency department I work in, and we know that there is a significant rate of alcohol use related to these accidents.

LL: Dr. Green said every single day. How often do you encounter a drunk driver that you can't report?

MERRIL PAULS: So I would say every shift.

LL: Every shift. Now we're not just talking about severely injured people here. I'm wondering if you encounter patients who actually aren't that badly injured who come to the emergency and then leave before the police can get to them.

MERRIL PAULS: So I guess it is a little more complicated than that. As you said in the sense that the question about what we will raise as a threshold to consider reporting. And then what would be a process whereby to undertake that. So I think you've rightly pointed out the confidentiality is a bedrock concept for many reasons, and it's not just theoretical reasons but very practical reasons why people need to feel comfortable to come to us and disclose important issues. We do know that there's many other issues where we've decided as a society as a profession through the courts that physicians either should or must disclose information. So we know for example that we've an acted gunshot wound or putting legislation which that was somewhat controversial, we have laws in most provinces that say that we should, and sometimes say we must, report drivers that are unsafe for other reason. So for example if somebody comes to me and has a seizure, I need to report that to the medical licensing authorities. So I think I really want to support what Rob is saying that this should at least be conversation, that should least have that conversation on the table about whether or not we need to change or consider modifying these rules around confidentiality. Because we do have some other precedents that would suggest that this is a very important right that patients have but not absolute. And we do need to balance the risks to the patients and to society with that need to maintain confidentiality as best we can.

LL: Right. I just want to get it a little more context though. In reading about this, there were suggestions that some who are impaired aren't really injured that badly but they say they need to be taken to the E.R., and then they get to the E.R. and the doctor says okay you can leave now, and it simply used as a way to avoid the police getting involved. Have you experienced that?

MERRIL PAULS: So it would be hard to say if that was exactly the motivation the patients are but we do know we do have that experience, that people kind of choose to or want to leave and it's hard to know for sure why they would do that. There's some data from other jurisdictions including B.C. that would suggest that that occurs as well, that that patients who are in hospital are even more severely injured tend to avoid being picked up by the courts by the police and the courts. So there does seem to be a real role to try and maybe enhance the way that the systems communicate with one another to ensure that we can capture people who both have posed a risk so they've created a risky situation by being in an accident. We also know these patients actually pose risks in the future that if they've been in those accidents once that they pose a risk again. To do that in the future. So there's multiple reasons why we might have an interest in saying that this group poses a risk to the public.

LL: So you advocated a discussion on this but I'm wondering if I can pin you down sure. Should you be allowed to tip off police to a drunk driver who's your patient?

MERRIL PAULS: So I would argue that that would be one thing that we should put on the table. It seems to me that there's other things we can do also to try and help maybe support that, and if we can minimize the burden that we place on physicians or the health care system to be police reporters. Other things like creating a lower threshold for police to request blood alcohol for example would put less of an onus on me to notify them. It would make it easier for them to come to me. Or we could also create other systemic ways, cultural ways, legal ways to make it easier to identify those patients rather than having me, the onus on me as a physician, to report them. But even though I'm a staunch defender of confidentiality in the emergency department, this is a situation where the burden is so great that there's such a significant risk to patients and to society that think we should put that on the table that that would make it easier for us to directly or specifically notify police about these patients in these situations.

LL: Dr. Shawn Whatley let's bring you into the conversation. What do you think? Should physicians be sharing the information with police?

SHAWN WHATLEY: Well I think we already have a process for policing in Ontario at least. And I get very nervous when doctors start giving suggestions about how the police should do their job. I think addiction and mental health is a gigantic issue in our society right now. And solving that by using the police to get “increased conviction rate" or to capture people makes me very very nervous. As you said the cornerstone of the medicine is the doctor patient relationship and the cornerstone of the doctor patient relationship is patient confidentiality. We already have mandatory reporting under Section 3 of the Highway Traffic Act and I can quote it to you: "Any patient who is suffering from a medical condition that may make it dangerous for the person to operate a motor vehicle must be reported to the Ministry of Transportation".

LL: But that's not reporting to the police.

SHAWN WHATLEY: Absolutely not. I think the police should have their own way to get information. And we're reporting to the ministry I think it undermines that relationship that we need to have with patients. I already have patients who don't come into the department because they're worried. They'll flee the scene after they've had a car accident especially single vehicle car accident. They go off the road. They've been drinking that evening. They're more likely to flee the scene, walk to a neighbor's, house go home, come back the next day for me to treat their injuries. I want to decrease the threshold for patients to be able to come in and get the care they need.

LL: Okay. I think that that gives me a sense of how you answer the next question. How do you weigh your patients’ right to privacy against that potential danger of them driving drunk in the future and hurting someone?

SHAWN WHATLEY: Well currently right now the legislation says that I must protect a patient's privacy. If society wants to have a broader discussion about undermining that confidentiality or creating a new reporting requirement, that's a discussion for society to have with all interested stakeholders. Just to be clear, the number of people who come into the emergency department with alcohol in their blood is enormous. If we were starting to report all people who had blood alcohol levels, I mean I don't know how you'd even managed to keep up with them. We already have mandatory reporting requirements to the Ministry of Transportation. I don't see why we need to now call the police on everyone with a blood alcohol level.

LL: Dr. Pauls what's your response to that?

MERRIL PAULS: Sure things are those are fantastic points about trying to find that right balance. We know that we already are doing that. There's a fairly wide array of things that we either do or are permitted to report. Some are less controversial things like specked child abuse or communicable diseases. So we already know that while confidentiality is so important that we already do know that in certain situations that threshold is met where the level of risk does does pose a significant amount. So for example I've argued against gunshot wound reporting for exactly the same reasons that I've just been presented, because I don't think we have the intervention in that situation or that poses the kind of risk that people perceive it to.

LL: Gunshot wounds or different then driving drunk?

MERRIL PAULS: I think so for many many different reasons. I could present you evidence that shows there is less general risk or overall risk from those incidents and in those cases actually it's the victim of the crime right, that's presenting to the emergency department being reported. And it's not clear what the intervention is going to be that's going to actually kind of mandate that longer term risk. But I think in this situation what tips the balance for me is the idea that it does pose such a significant burden on suicide in general. And just to be clear we're talking specifically about alcohol use in the context of driving. So I wouldn't be reporting. I completely agree with the point made that we see so many patients who have alcohol related to other aspects of their disease processes. And that's not what would be on the table, from my perspective, it would be just in the context, the narrow context of a significant motor vehicle collision that we might consider. And then in that case we would say that probably the risk posed by that individual, I think, would tip the balance. Or I would argue that we might want to really relax those laws or those reporting regulations provided we also take other steps to try and minimize the confidentiality breach and to kind of maximize other ways to ensure that these patients are captured, and then we help kind of address the long term risk.

LL: What are the other steps that you're suggesting?

MERRIL PAULS: So things like making it easier still lowering the threshold by which police are able to ask or request for blood alcohol.

LL: You mentioned that earlier. How would that work?

MERRIL PAULS: That's actually a significant concern. You know one of the specific issues that Dr. Green addressed was the idea that I'm in the hospital and I know that alcohol's has been involved and often the police will come sometimes they don't. But even if the police are there and they have to meet a certain threshold that would say that I have a suspicion that alcohol or other intoxicants have been involved, and then only on that basis can actually request a blood alcohol level in many other jurisdictions in Europe I believe in Australia as well, the threshold is much much lower. So in any context of a motor vehicle collision a blood alcohol request can be made. And so then what that allows is that allows it not to have to be initiated from the emerging department or from the physician that allows the police to more readily kind of request that kind of information. I think maybe some lawyers and police should be able to kind of comment on the utility of that and whether that finds the right balance between societal protection of people's rights. But from our perspective I think that that might help us to tip that balance and make it less an issue about physicians having to report and more issues about our whole society, our court system, our police all understand that we can kind of take it up a notch when we try to identify these folks who create risk for us all.

LL: Dr. Whatley what do you think about the idea of lowering the threshold?

SHAWN WHATLEY: Well first of all I think it's a brilliant comment. When we put the emphasis on the people whose jobs it already is to look after these kind of issues. So get the lawyers get the police involved. Find out what's holding them back from doing their job and getting a warrant in often very obvious cases of intoxicated driving. And just to be clear Laura if we think a patient is at immediate or imminent harm to themselves or others we can hold them for a period of observation under the Mental Health Act. So we put them on a form one in Ontario. They are held against their will for a period of time where they have to have another assessment by a different physician.

LL: Mental health even though they're intoxicated?

SHAWN WHATLEY: But you don't know. You just know that they are incompetent. They're showing the signs that makes you concerned. Can this person actually care for themselves? Are they a danger to themselves or to others? And so the threshold is fairly low for you to make that initial judgement. You see a patient who's all banged up there. They're not acting normally. They're obviously intoxicated. You have proof on lab work showing that they're intoxicated. And now they're saying I want to drive my truck home or I want to leave the hospital. You can actually keep them there.

LL: Have you done it, yourself?

SHAWN WHATLEY: Absolutely, absolutely. Your first job is to help that patient in front of you. That form can be reversed in a very short time if the patient sensorium clears up and they seem a lot more calm and coherent, they show insight. Maybe within six hours or even 12 hours you could have someone else reverse that for him. But certainly your first duty is to that patient and their protection.

LL: I'm wondering what the appetite is among emergency doctors in Ontario though to change privacy laws.

SHAWN WHATLEY: That would take a broader discussion. Again I think this is more of a societal issue. We don't have a formal policy on this but we certainly have legislation around privacy and I think we should proceed very cautiously if we start broadening the powers. Not the powers but the mandate on the medical community to start reporting things I already have issues where patients won't come for care because they know certain things are being reported. I don't think that's good for patients.

LL: Dr. Pauls how much of a priority do you think this is for emergency room physicians to at least as you say have this discussion?

MERRIL PAULS: That's a great question Laura. I would really kind of really support what Dr. Green said that notion that this does I think come from an instinct that many physicians have. Our primary notion is to care for those patients, but it also is very very very difficult to see the damage that's done to actually be looking at those blood samples that have that evidence, and to not have that in any way reflected at the other end and the consequences those kind of patients. So I think there is an instinct that there's that true tension that many many physicians are struggling with around trying to mitigate that risk but also protect the confidentiality of patients and there's many. Every department I've ever worked in or ever visited is the anecdotal story of the physician who kind of slides the alcohol level across the table to the police to try and kind of help them in their investigation. We know that's completely wrong at every level that that's a professional breach, that the police can't use that or can't kind of proceed to use that in court. But it does speak to the notion that physicians and, as Dr. Green said, nurses and other health care professionals are profoundly conflicted and probably frustrated by the notion that they have this clear evidence that alcohol has played a role in these accents and that it doesn't seem to be able to be reflected in how we as a society are dealing with this and the ramifications for those folks involved. So it really is a it's a true conflict with important principles and both sides.

LL: You said you said that's anecdotal. Do you know of this happening where there were a doctor does slip the information over to the police quietly?

MERRIL PAULS: Absolutely. So I've read multiple cases there's a time when presented around on this I had read multiple cases in college findings. So multiple cases of physicians who their college had found they breached professional rules by doing this. I've seen a physician do it actually. So we do know that that we desperately we want to kind of try and mitigate the risk that this poses. We know that we need to do it in a way that's appropriate to the right that respects people's kind of rights and process. And exactly as Dr. Whatley is saying that the idea that that I would never want patients to to not come, or not be willing to disclose important information to me in the emergency department. And so that's clearly the tension that we need to balance out, is trying to protect individual and public safety but not create rules that are so onerous are so difficult or are so frightening for people that they won't at the same time still present for care.

LL: Dr. Whatley if you ever experience that or seen that happen where somebody is actually doing something that they shouldn't be as doctors and passing that information on?

SHAWN WHATLEY: Well I've never seen anyone slide the paper across the desk, but certainly in that in a trauma room you often have many providers in the room and it's a very open environment. We're all trying to do what's best for the patient. Someone might come in and yell out a certain lab result, or very often you have standing there often the police officers in the corner of the room to even if they've just come in to retrieve their handcuffs. So certainly there are times where information is out there may be less than the ideal confidential environment. But you're doing it in the best interests of the patient in front of you. But I can't say that I've actually seen a piece of paper given to a police officer.

LL: We are going to have to leave it there but I think both of you for coming on to talk about this.

SHAWN WHATLEY: Thanks so much.

MERRIL PAULS: Thanks for having us.

LL: Merril Paul's is an emergency doctor, a medical ethicist in Winnipeg and that is where we reached him. Shawn Whatley is a former emergency physician and the president of the Ontario Medical Association. He is in Mount Albert Ontario. Well coming up in our next half hour, putting ISIS fighters on trial in Iraq. Human rights advocates question if they can get a fair trial. Others wonder if they even deserve one. I'm Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna-Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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10 minutes later, a death sentence: How Iraq is dealing with the aftermath of ISIS

Guests: Belkis Wille, Margaret Coker,

LL: I'm Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current. In December the Iraqi government announced that after more than three years of combat its war against ISIS was over. It had driven the extremist group from all of the territory it once held. Now Iraq is waging a new war against ISIS in its courtrooms. Human Rights Watch reported in December that at least 20,000 people had been detained for allegedly collaborating with the group. Nearly 3000 defendants were convicted. Many sentenced to death. Margaret Coker is the Baghdad bureau chief for The New York Times and she has been covering this story. We have reached her in Baghdad. Hello.

MARGARET COKER: Hi Laura.

LL: When we hear about trials related to ISIS we are quick to think of the fighters on the frontline. You were in those courts, who were using?

MARGARET COKER: Well Iraq's courts are overflowing with terrorism suspects. You know the Islamic State had taken over almost a third of the nation in 2014 and Iraqis have arrested thousands of people who were low level functionaries of the terrorist organization, fighters, yes, the wives of fighters and the children as well.

LL: Were there are also people who may have been coerced?

MARGARET COKER: It seems to be yes but quite frankly it's hard to get access to these suspects. They're held generally away from the prison population. It's hard to find sometimes the people who have been detained especially the foreigners who are being held separately than Iraqi suspects in this case.

LL: So what was your sense of the procedure that was being carried out in the court?

MARGARET COKER: Well the Iraqi terrorism laws are quite broad and there are quite severe. Basically there's a very low level, low bar for conviction. If you seem to be in any way supportive of a terrorist organization, that's enough to convict you and give you the penalty of death. So from the point of view of a suspect if you have admitted to being present in Islamic State territory that's grounds both for a court case and a conviction. And so procedurally things are moving ahead like clockwork and moving ahead quite efficiently. But from a point of view of absolute justice I think there's lots of questions about what kind of justice is actually being delivered in Iraq.

LL: For those of us who are more used to North American courtrooms, are there defence lawyers? Is there evidence presented? Is there a chance to counter that evidence? What's going on inside those courtrooms?

MARGARET COKER: Well so suspects are interrogated and they should, according to Iraqi law, be interrogated in the presence of a lawyer. I don't think that many actually have legal representation when those interrogations are taking place. For the foreign women whose trials I saw in Baghdad earlier in the month, their defence lawyer had not had access to them until just about an hour before the court case started. The defence lawyer was a state appointed attorney. He was he did not have access to the women's files, in part because according to Iraqi laws terrorism suspects those files are classified. So he really had no background or way to mitigate any of the charges against them. However they have, all of them, had admitted to being present in the Islamic State, the territory run by the so-called Islamic State. And so from the judge's point of view that was enough to secure a conviction.

LL: Tell us about Nazli Ishmael. Can you describe her particular story and how her trial proceeded?

MARGARET COKER: Yes. There were about 1300 foreign women most of whom had been wives of Islamic State fighters or functionaries. They surrendered to Iraqi forces last summer at the height of the liberation battles as the Iraqis called it. And among these women are a large number of Turks. Nazli was one of the Turkish women who went on trial. She had told the judge, in her very brief statement, that she came to the Islamic State territory with the urgency of her husband who took them from Turkey, to first to Syria and then she came into Iraq. They had two children at the time she came to Islamic State territory and then gave birth to a third child. Her other two children were killed in airstrikes, she said. And the third child was a 2 year old toddler and he was waiting in the hallways of the courtroom with many other children whose mothers were on trial that day. We don't know anything else about her background. We really don't know. It's very hard for me as a as an observer to judge if she was a true believer or not. You know like the judge I basically got to observe her for about 10 minutes. The women were clearly subdued. She Nazli was as well. And it's hard to tell how traumatized these women are how sorry they may or may not have been and what their original motivations were for their journeys to Islamic State territory. But what's clear is that after her conviction the judge did not make any ruling about her child. So we don't know really what's going to happen to him or the other more than 500 children who are accompanying the foreign women who have been captured by Iraqi forces.

LL: Well what happened to Natalie after she was convicted, and you're saying this took 10 minutes?

MARGARET COKER: Yep. About 10 minutes. It was a very brief statement. The procedures that I saw in the Baghdad special terrorism court was that the defendants are allowed a brief statement. It took approximately two minutes for that to take place. The judge asked perfunctory questions and they then leave the court room. He calls them back after a few minutes and declares his verdict. And the verdicts in all of the cases that I was witnessing were all guilty and all the death sentence. And the women that were all there that day there were about 10 children with them. The mothers convicted to die for terrorism crimes. The children will go back with them to their prison while they're awaiting their appeals and their ultimate sentence. But if the sentences are carried out the children then have no more parents. And I think depending on the nationality of those children, and the government from the home nation of their parents, they're either going to end up most likely living in an Iraqi orphanage for the rest of their lives or maybe be repatriated to the home country of their mother. In this case perhaps Turkey.

LL: The idea of a conviction and a death sentence resulting from a ten minute trial might be jarring to a lot of Canadians. What's your sense of the general public perception of this process among Iraqis?

MARGARET COKER: Yes. You know Iraqis have witnessed years, decades almost of intense violence and terror and dictatorship. And there is a very strong sense among many Iraqis that in order to send a message to people who are violently trying to disrupt their country or bring extremist ideologies to their country, that there needs to be the ultimate penalty in order to deter further violence. And so the death penalty is widely accepted here and widely approved of, concerting especially the amount of deaths and bloodshed and destruction that the Islamic State caused during their three and a half year rule here.

LL: The death penalty and also these very speedy trials.

MARGARET COKER: Yes speedy trials. You know I think Iraq has struggled for a very long time to have any credibility to its judicial procedures. And Iraqis unfortunately don't expect very in-depth investigations or very in-depth trials for a lot of crimes committed here.

LL: I'm wondering when you were sitting in the courtroom listening to these cases go by, did you learn anything about life in the so-called caliphate from the people who were being put on trial?

MARGARET COKER: No their statements really were quick and very perfunctory. It was not heartfelt mea culpa by any stretch of the imagination and there weren't a whole lot of human details about it. They were almost straightforward biographies. I was here in this time. I was there at that time. And I have this many children. My husband did this. So there they just didn't have time to flesh out anything individual or any mitigating circumstances really about why they were where they were.

LL: Were you able to speak to any of them after conviction and sentencing?

MARGARET COKER: Briefly. So the women were Turkish, speaking only Turkish with very broken Arabic. There was also two women originally from Azerbaijan and they had court appointed translators. So we could ask a couple of questions in Arabic with them. Many just seemed to be relieved that the whole thing was over. Many seemed to be I think accepting of the fate they either saw the Caliphate die and were ready to die themselves, or were so traumatized that they didn't feel like life is worth living.

LL: I'm wondering when we talk about this particular set of trials how typical is about how the general justice system works in Iraq?

MARGARET COKER: I really am not an expert on the way that the justice system works. However I think from a Western perspective it definitely works poorly. The judges and lawyers are generally under resourced and overmatched to some of the more complex crimes that Iraq has seen. Whether it's terrorism whether it's money laundering whether it's sanctions busting, there are very many intelligent professionals who are trying to do their jobs with integrity in a system that has been broken for years. At the same time you know there's so many things that Iraq has had to deal with whether it's a civil war, sectarian bloodshed or Al-Qaeda and now Islamic state that that the courts are almost secondary to how the population is trying to seek either justice or vengeance for all of these huge destructive elements that have been in their lives for years.

LL: Justice versus vengeance. Do you want to venture a view as to what you see this?

MARGARET COKER: I think that according to Iraqi law there is justice being done. According to the atmosphere that I feel when I talk to Iraqis on the streets, or in their homes, is that there are no grounds for clemency here. There's the there's a real thirst to have some closure, some sense of response to all of the turmoil and the absolute devastation that they've experienced in their lives. So vengeance has a moral tone to it that I'm not sure that I would agree with that. But here Justice is a little bit more of an Old Testament version of justice than what North Americans are used to.

LL: And I was going to say that if we in the West cast aspersions upon the way they're dealing with it what would they say?

MARGARET COKER: They say try to live in our shoes just for a day and then we'll see. We'll see what you think about this.

LL: Margaret Coker thank you very much.

MARGARET COKER: You're welcome.

LL: Margaret Coker is the New York Times bureau chief in Baghdad Iraq. We contacted the Iraqi embassy in Ottawa which sent us a statement. It reads in part: "In many cases many of Daesh members - Daesh being another name for ISIS - have been returned to their home countries such as a group of four Russian women and 27 children, in February after Iraqi authorities concluded they had been tricked into coming to Iraqi territory. Iraq is collaborating with Turkey to repatriate minors whose parents took them to Mosul as well as those found innocent of wrongdoing. That contradicts that Iraq handles all trials as one size fits all punishment for the perpetrator of crimes against humanity as well as the wives and children of Daesh criminals. Iraq is a democratic country and has no justification whatsoever to perpetuate the death penalty against anyone." Well my next guest has also been watching the criminal proceedings for months as they weave their way through the courts. Belkis Wille is the senior Iraq and Qatar researcher for Human Rights Watch. And we have reached her in Kiev Ukraine. Hello.

BELKIS WILLE: Hi. How are you?

LL: Fine thanks. What are your concerns about how these trials are being conducted?

BELKIS WILLE: Well I think that the conversation that you've just had brings out a lot of them and what's really at the root of a lot of the problems with these trial is actually the nature of the charges that are being brought. As was mentioned the charges are very vague under Iraq's counter-terrorism law of this broad affiliation with their support for ISIS. As a result of simply a confession is enough to convict in over 95 percent of these cases in Iraq where you have really thousands of people across the country being prosecuted [unintelligible] affiliation. All there is before the judge is this is this confession. And we know in many instances these confessions are being extracted by torture and based solely on this confession the judge is then convicting. And because of the way these charges are being brought, you also don't see any cases where these defendants are being charged for the additional crimes that they may have committed. You have some people coming before judges who may indeed have used women as sex slaves, have murdered, have raped and none of them are being charged for those specific crimes. All they're being charged with is affiliation with the group, with ISIS, and then often resulting in the death penalty.

LL: Now after months of sitting in on these trials what stands out for you?

BELKIS WILLE: Well I think for one thing as I've just explained it, because of the nature of these cases, victims of perhaps the most egregious abuses we can imagine have no role whatsoever in these trials. The judiciary is making no efforts to make sure that the victims of let's say sex slavery are being given a chance or their family members if they've passed away, to be present in the room, to look in the eyes of the defendant and to really feel like justice has been done for them for the specific crime committed against them on that day. And because of that it's very hard to see how these trials, which are you know churning out sentences in in such quick succession. It's hard to see how these trials are actually going to do anything by way of producing real justice for the horrific abuses that were committed. And also as a way of paving the road for reconciliation in Iraq. Because now you have a point where the country has to start living together again in unity.

LL: And to that point you witnessed a trial of a farmer with a tractor who was given the death penalty. Tell me his story.

BELKIS WILLE: So two weeks ago in the counter-terrorism court outside of Mosul, the court that is handling the vast majority of the trials of ISIS suspects, there was a man who was telling a panel of three judges in his sentencing hearing that indeed he had it. He had a tractor with a water truck on the back of it and he was a farmer originally and uses this for his farmland, but when ISIS came along and started fighting on the frontline, fighters demanded that he start trucking water to them on the frontline. That was enough for the judge to convict him under the counterterrorism law and to give him the death penalty. That was seen as enough of a support for the group ISIS to be deserving of a death sentence.

LL: But how do we know that he wasn't an active supporter of ISIS and that's why he provided his services?

BELKIS WILLE: That's simply not what the judge in the prosecution said. They did not make any claim that he was a supporter of ISIS and they did not make any claimed that he had said anything to suggest a broader sympathy. All he was saying is I was obliged to truck this water to the front line. And the judge was happy with that crime in and of itself as enough to produce a conviction. And you know I've spent a lot of time in these courtrooms hearing case after case of the many people who lived under ISIS who, simply to get by to make a living wage, were obliged in many different ways to support the group whether as a cloak, as a guard at a checkpoint, as a functionary in one of ISIS's ministries. But because of that role that they played they are now being given these harsh sentences.

LL: How many people are awaiting trial right now?

BELKIS WILLE: In Nineveh alone, the governorate where you have Mosul where they're handling the highest caseload, you have about 6500 people that are currently in detention, awaiting trial or being sentenced at the moment. And of those being sentence 30 percent are receiving the death penalty.

LL: And what percentages are being convicted?

BELKIS WILLE: The conviction rate is incredibly high. Near the end of last year the conviction rate was at about 95 percent. It's gone down a little bit now it's closer to 90 percent. But when it comes to release it's very rarely because the person gives a convincing argument to the judge about how they were obliged to support the group, and instead it's merely because every once in a while they realized they were holding the wrong Mohammad, or the wrong Aamar because you know often you have people with the same names living in Iraq.

LL: You spoke to Iraq's chief justice four days ago. What did he tell you about the way they're conducting these trials?

BELKIS WILLE: Well for one thing he listened to our concerns when we were highlighting this this issue really around the type of charge that that's being given. Under a provision of the counterterrorism, law no proper investigations being done to collect evidence of let's say rapes, killings. And what he said to us was you know let's be frank. With all these cases that we need to deal with, we have chosen to go with the most expedient charge which is the counterterrorism law where the threshold of evidence is so low. And that's why we're moving forward with that charge. We have no particular interest in putting the resources in to prosecuting these cases and really looking into the crimes that individuals may or may not have committed.

LL: Is it just about efficiency?

BELKIS WILLE: You know in Iraq at the moment the government is feeling a lot of pressure to show the people of Iraq that it has won the battle against ISIS and that it is and will continue to be harsh on ISIS and harsh on terror. As a result, to a certain extent it's a numbers game. The government and the judiciary like to tell the people of Iraq that they are convicting people in the hundreds and giving death penalty if the people in the hundred as really a political and symbolic statement against the group ISIS. And that's really part of the reason that I think we see this reluctance to handle these cases more robustly and properly and simply to rush through with these very short trials.

LL: But can you understand that after being brutalized by ISIS, that the priority would be to punish anyone connected with the group?

BELKIS WILLE: What I could understand is the desire after such brutal atrocity to would be trials that would really put these people on notice for those crimes. And that's not what these trials are doing. You have people who held dozens of women as sex slaves. I would understand the desire for the justice system to really you know heavily publicized trials into those people for those horrific abuses. But competing with all of this is of course the bigger effort that the government needs to make when it comes to reconciliation. After so many years of war and violence, Iraq needs to come together again and communities that have been torn apart by ISIS need to start living together again. With these flawed trials that go no way towards bringing about real transitional justice is a war, that is really fundamentally undermines the current Iraqi project of reconciliation.

LL: The Human Rights Watch has issued a list of recommendations. What are the most important steps you want Iraq to take to ensure that these trials are in fact just?

BELKIS WILLE: Really what Iraq and the Iraqi government need to do is develop a national strategy on transitional justice and reconciliation and an acknowledgement that prosecutions are not the only answer. Right now what you have is reconciliation as a topic is simply thought to be dealt with by prosecutions, revenge and executions. There are so many other elements that need to take place in terms of truth telling, allowing communities to start living together again and realizing that not everyone should be prosecuted. The man trucking water to the frontline because he was obliged to should not be serving a criminal sentence for that.

LL: I thank you for your time.

BELKIS WILLE: Thank you.

LL: Belkis Wille is the senior Iraq and Qatar researcher for Human Rights Watch. She is in Kiev Ukraine. And now a word from the team that made this show this week.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: Hello I'm Samira Mohyeddin, one of the producers here at The Current. This week the show was produced by: Alison Masemann, Howard Goldenthal, Pacinthe Mattar, Idella Sturino, Julie Crysler, Jessica Linzey, Ines Colabrese, Kristin Nelson, Liz Hoath, Geoff Turner, John Chipman, Mary-Catherine McIntosh, Michael O'Halloran, Exan Auyoung, Karin Marley, and Danielle Carr. Special thanks to Anne Penman in Vancouver, Susan McKenzie in Montreal, and Suzanne Dufresne in Winnipeg. The Current's intern is Bethlehem Mariam. The Current's writer is Peter Mitton. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso [eye-you-so] and our digital producer is Padraig Moran. Our documentary editor is Joan Webber. Transcriptions are provided by Rasha Shehata and Nikhil Sharma. Our technical producer is Gary Francis. Our senior producers are Willow Smith in Toronto and Cathy Simon in Vancouver. The acting executive producer of The Current is Alison Broddle.

LL: That is our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio 1 for Q. Tom Power will speak with Bernie Taupin about his life's work with Elton John. It coincides with the release of two star studded cover albums of the duo's greatest hits including interpretations by Coldplay, Lady Gaga, Ed Sheeran, and others. And remember you can always take the current with you to go on the CBC Radio app, it is free from the App Store or Google Play. We began the program today with a discussion about forensic and police sketches. Regardless of their investigative value, drawing the human face is a special skill. Just ask Bob Ross. The famed painter and teacher is best known for his lush landscapes but he's occasionally tackled portraits on his program The Joy of Painting, although he usually brings in a fellow painter to help. We're going to leave you with some tips on painting faces from Bob Ross and a friend. And this is just a sample if you'd like to see the full lesson check out our Twitter feed at the current CBC where we will post a link. I'm Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

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BOB ROSS: Hey welcome back. Certainly glad you could join me today. You know we get hundreds of letters here at the joy of painting and one of the things that I read over and over again is people want to learn how to do a basic face, just how to paint the human face. I think I told you this story years and years ago when I was going to school that my instructor became a very good friend. And after a long period of time he took me aside one evening he says Bob I want to tell you the truth. I want you to go out and paint bushes and trees because that's where your heart is and leave portrait painting to someone else. Well I thought today I would bring that gentleman here. His name is John Dowd. He comes to us from Idaho and he's one of the most fantastic portrait painters in the country. And he's going to show us today just to do a basic figure, how to block in a face, how to get the proportions right, the things that we normally have a lot of problems with. And I think he's going to show you a technique that you will find easy enough that you can do at home with very little practice. John welcome to the Joy of Painting. We're so glad to have you here today.

JOHN DOWD: Well thank you for having me Bob.

BOB ROSS: What are you going to do today?

JOHN DOWD: Going to explain a technique called the wipeout technique. It has to do primarily with the surface that we're painting on which is a shellacked surface, Bob, it allows a person with a rag to get up here and just wipe down this canvas and creates lights that are already on there, or apply paint through and then just simply wipe it out with the rag. It's a subtractive process as well as an additive process. We all start today with just the basic shape of the head. The human head is roughly 8 inches high and approximately 6 inches wide. These are just all average dimensions. The head is sort of an egg shaped like so.

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Thursday April 19, 2018 Full Episode Transcript

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