Iraq abuse case scoured for links to commanders

1.00pm


FORT BRAGG, North Carolina - Lawyers for Lynndie England probed for links between abuse at Abu Ghraib prison and the military chain of command at a hearing on Thursday for the female US soldier who caused widespread outrage when she was pictured holding a naked Iraqi prisoner on a leash.

A military intelligence analyst said he witnessed two colleagues abusing prisoners, but a top military intelligence commander at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 said she never approved abusive tactics.

The testimony came on the third day of a hearing at a military court in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to determine if England, a pregnant 21-year-old military police officer, should stand trial for prisoner abuse.

England, who faces up to 38 years in prison if convicted on all charges, became the public face of an abuse scandal that shocked the world and hampered the US war effort after the release of photographs of soldiers and inmates at Abu Ghraib.

Looking to bolster their theory that England was just following orders, her lawyers questioned military criminal investigators about how much control military intelligence had at Abu Ghraib.

Investigators said there was no evidence the US military chain of command ordered or sanctioned abuse.

But Spc Israel Rivera, an interrogation analyst, said that last October he witnessed an incident of inmate abuse involving two MI soldiers, bolstering defence beliefs that MI was involved in abuse in the cell blocks.

Rivera said he saw Spcs Roman Krol and Armin Cruz, along with some MPs, herd three naked prisoners, two of whom had been accused of raping a boy, into a pile.

"They were put together in a big bundle of bodies and they were handcuffed together," he said in testimony by telephone. "They were arranged to look like they were having sex."

Media reports say Rivera, Krol and Cruz, members of the 325th MI Battalion, are under investigation over the incident. None has been charged.

There has been little testimony so far in the hearing, which began on Tuesday, that MI or other commanders ordered or sanctioned the abuse.

Captain Carolyn Wood, the top MI interrogation commander at Abu Ghraib in late 2003, said prisoners could not be maliciously humiliated and interrogators must ask superiors for written permission to use some techniques including the use of dogs or keeping a prisoner naked. She said she received no such requests at Abu Ghraib.

Asked by defence lawyers if using the words "faggot" or "pussy" or suggesting a prisoner was "less than a man" to demean a man of Arab culture was an appropriate technique, Wood said it could be if used to diminish the prisoner's ego.

But an interrogator calling a prisoner a "pussy" and putting women's underwear on his head "would take it to the level of being an absolutely inappropriate tactic," she said.

Wood conceded there were grey areas in what constituted appropriate tactics to extract information, but said putting naked prisoners in a pile or putting someone up against a wall and forcing him to masturbate were certainly out of bounds.

In other testimony, Special Agent Tyler Pieron, an official with the military's Criminal Investigation Division who led prisoner interviews at Abu Ghraib, said some soldiers at the prison suggested, "Yeah MI told us to do it" but could not identify the officers who had given the orders.

Pieron said he believed the abuse happened largely around Ramadan -- the holy Muslim season of fasting and prayer which last year was in October and November. But he said "the beatings, the running people into walls, seemed to go on all the time." He identified Spc Charles Graner as the apparent "ringleader."

Graner is one of the seven Military Police officers charged in the scandal and media reports have identified him as the father of England's child.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq