The Philadelphia Inquirer - Sunday, December 8, 1996

The Inquirer asked three doctors to perform physical and psychological examinations of all the Tibetans whose accounts of torture are being reported this week. The doctors - James A. Litch, of the University of Washington School of Medicine; Barry Kerzin, a former teacher at that school; and Ellie McDougall, of New Zealand - have been diagnosing and treating refugees and torture victims for several years. Each case reported by The Inquirer has been supported by a doctor's finding that physical or psychological scars were consistent with accounts of torture given by each victim. The Inquirer also commissioned a polygrapher, William Anderson of Glenmoore, Chester County, to perform lie-detector tests with the Tibetans interviewed. Anderson, a former FBI agent and former chairman of the criminal justice department at West Chester University, is in private practice. While working for the FBI, he was assigned to do polygraph exams for the Watergate investigation.

Anderson performed 24 polygraph tests in Dharmsala, India. He found that 23 of the people he tested were telling the truth about every detail of their arrest and torture. He found that the 24th - whose name and story do not appear in The Inquirer series - was lying in every detail he gave about being tortured. That person admitted that he was a former member of the Chinese Communist Party, and was a supervisor for the Chinese propaganda office in Lhoka, Tibet.

All but four of the people cited in this series underwent polygraph tests. Of those four - three nuns and a monk - one was too sick to be tested, and three were too far out of town when Anderson was in Dharmsala. All four were examined by doctors on behalf of The Inquirer.

Every person signed informed-consent papers for The Inquirer, allowing the newspaper to use his or her name and story, along with the medical findings. In every case, the newspaper and the doctors discussed the possible risks to the refugees and their families if their names were published. In every case, the refugee said that the publication of the story, with the use of names, outweighed the possible risks.

Two Inquirer reporters and one photographer entered Tibet separately at different times. They travelled with tourist visas, rather than journalists' visas, because China severely restricts travel and interviews by journalists in Tibet.

Most of the Tibetans were interviewed and examined in India, where they have taken up homes as refugees.