Photo of Iraq prison abuse done in jest says lawyer

A US Army reservist accused of attaching wires to a hooded Iraqi prisoner did so in a joke shared with the prisoner, her lawyer said at the start of a court-martial yesterday.

Sabrina Harman, who pleaded innocent to charges of conspiracy, dereliction of duty and maltreatment of subordinates, also photographed abuses because she wanted to document what she felt was wrongful behaviour, attorney Frank Spinner said.

"She was upset as early as October 20, 2003, at some of the things she was seeing. She was offended by what she saw and she hoped at some point that she could prove it," Spinner told a military jury at the start of her trial.

The former pizza restaurant worker, who joined the Army reserves after the September 11, 2001, attacks, is linked to several of the most notorious Iraqi prisoner abuse photos.

She is accused of posing before a pyramid of naked Iraqi prisoners and photographing them as they were forced to masturbate. She is also charged with placing wires on an Iraqi detainee dubbed Gilligan by guards and telling him he would be electrocuted if he stepped off a box - in a picture seen worldwide.

"This was a joke. Gilligan understood it to be a joke. It was all part of their relationship," Spinner said. "It was a relationship beyond what the pictures showed."

Spinner also said other now notorious pictures did not constitute abuse as the prisoners were hooded and thus did not know they were being photographed.

Earlier in the day, Harman pleaded innocent before the court chose a military jury. In their opening arguments, Government prosecutors showed photos of abuse involving Harman and said the motivation for such activity was cruelty at the expense of prisoners.

The first witness expected in Harman's court-martial is Ivan Frederick, who is serving an eight-year sentence in prison for sexually and physically abusing detainees.

Six soldiers charged with abuse offences in Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad reached plea deals with the Government and pleaded guilty. The group's ringleader, Charles Graner, contested the charges in January and was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Lynndie England, the woman photographed holding a naked prisoner on a leash as he lay on a cement prison floor pleaded guilty last week. But the judge in the Abu Ghraib cases, James Pohl, declared a mistrial after lawyers presented information suggesting she was innocent and was following orders.

The military has only pressed criminal charges against low-ranking soldiers at Abu Ghraib in a scandal that sparked international outrage against the United States. Yesterday the Army said it had relieved Colonel Thomas Pappas, the former top military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib, of his command, but did not charge him criminally.

Last week, the military demoted Army Reserve Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who oversaw US-run prisons in Iraq when the Abu Ghraib abuses were taking place, and relieved her of her command.

The prison abuse scandal has prompted an examination of the US treatment of prisoners in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Some criticise the focus on low-ranking soldiers rather than those who created an environment in which such maltreatment could take place.

"Where are all the higher-ups who were supposed to be supporting us? Why aren't they in this courtroom?" Matthew Bolinger, England's supervisor, said last week.

- Reuters