The humiliated man beneath the hood

By ANDREW BUNCOMBE and JUSTIN HUGGLER

BAGHDAD - Hatder Sabbar Abd is the man in the hood.

He was one of the Iraqi prisoners stripped, humiliated, beaten and abused by American reservists and interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison in what is arguably the worst scandal to engulf the United States military since the massacre of Vietnamese villagers at My Lai.

Having been freed from prison without charge several months ago, the slightly-built father of five is now talking about his abuse and - with the help of the photographs that have shocked and angered the world - identifying those who carried it out.

In an extraordinary interview with the New York Times, Abd detailed a catalogue of abuse and sexual humiliation carried out by captors at the sprawling prison complex west of Baghdad, which for decades was notorious as the location of Saddam Hussein's torture and execution rooms.

The irony is not lost on Abd. "Americans did not mistreat me in general," he told the newspaper. "But these people must be tried. I can't tell you my feelings. The Americans got rid of Saddam Hussein. They told us about democracy and freedom. We are happy about that. Then [the soldiers] did this to the seven of us. I am asking 'Is that democracy, is that freedom?' "

The gathering scandal, which also involves allegations that British troops were involved in abuse of prisoners, is creating severe problems for the Bush Administration at a time when it was already struggling with growing difficulties in Iraq and a soaring casualty rate.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is under intense pressure and will today be forced to try to explain why the abuse was allowed to take place when he appears before Senators on Capitol Hill.

Yesterday Major General Geoffrey Miller, the new man in charge of Abu Ghraib jail, apologised for the torture meted out: "I would like to apologise for our nation and for our military for the small number of soldiers who committed illegal or unauthorised acts" he said in Baghdad.

President George W. Bush - adamant that a handover of sovereignty to an Iraqi authority will go ahead as planned on June 30 - yesterday gave interviews to two Arab language TV channels in an effort to try to limit the damage the scandal has done to America's already tattered image in the region.

He stopped short of an apology but in a probably hopeless effort to placate an outraged Arab world, he vowed that those responsible would be brought to justice.

One of those apparently responsible was Specialist Charles Graner, an Army reservist from Pennsylvania who was activated into 372nd Military Police Company in March 2003. While in captivity Abd did not know Graner by his real name. "That is Joiner," he said in the interview, pointing to a grinning soldier wearing a black hat and rubber gloves, one thumb raised as he stood behind a pyramid of naked prisoners.

Abd was able to identify himself in another photograph - which shows a prisoner wearing a hood - by small scars on his body. In that photograph a smiling woman soldier, identified as Private Lynndie England, who is also giving a thumbs up, points towards Abd's genitals. It emerged yesterday that England is Graner's fiance and is reportedly pregnant by him.

Speaking through a translator, Abd explained that as an Arab, perhaps the most degrading aspect of the abuse was the sexual humiliation. During one session of abuse, he and six other prisoners who had been involved in a fight were stripped naked, forced to straddle each other's backs and then made to simulate oral sex.

Abd said he recalled having his hood removed and being told by the soldiers' Arabic translator to masturbate as he looked at England. "She was laughing and she put her hands on her breasts," he told the newspaper.

"Of course I couldn't do it, so they beat me in the stomach and I fell to the ground. The translator said, 'Do it, do it. It's better than being beaten'. I said, 'How can I do it?' So I put my hand on my penis, just pretending."

At this point, one of the other prisoners - a friend of Abd's, he identified as Hussein - was pushed towards his genitals while the hood was put back over his own head. 'They made him sit next to me. My penis was very close to his mouth. I did not know it was my friend because of the hood."

He added: "It was humiliating. We did not think that we would survive. All of us believed we would be killed and we would not get out alive." Abd said that throughout the abuse, photographs were taken.

After the incident in which he was forced to simulate oral sex with his friend, the soldiers began piling him and the others on top of each other to form the pyramids, all the time clicking away with the camera.

When they were let down Abd recalls that Graner - "Joiner" - pulled on the prisoners' hoods as though they were leashes. "He said, 'When I whistle, you bark like a dog'," he said.

Graner has yet to publicly comment on the allegations. But his lawyer, Guy Womack, claimed that he was "following orders".

"I think when you see the photographs, you can tell these were obviously staged. They were part of the psychological manipulation of the prisoners being interrogated. It was being controlled and devised by the military intelligence community and other governmental agencies, including the CIA."

Abd would doubtless like to know whether Graner was also told by his superiors to force him to smoke three cigarettes at once. "I had three cigarettes in my pocket," Abd said in the interview. "Joiner said to me, 'Put them in your mouth and smoke all of them. If one falls out of your mouth, I will crush you with my boot.' I had no choice. I smoked them all."

Abd also detailed how Graner, a former prison officer, and two other male soldiers beat the seven hooded prisoners. The former Republican Guard soldier from the city of Nasiriyah said his jaw was broken so badly that even now - six months later - he is unable to eat properly. He estimated that during a two-hour period he received 50 blows.

It was after this session of beating that Abd and the others were told to remove their clothes. "Then the interpreter told us to strip," he said. "We told him, 'You are Egyptian, you are a Muslim. You know that as Muslims we cannot do that.' When we refused to take off our clothes they beat us and tore our clothes off with a blade."

Records obtained by the Independent reveal this was not the first time Graner was involved in abuse. Graner's ex-wife obtained three separate "temporary protection of abuse" orders from a county judge in their home town of Uniontown, Pennsylvania.

In the third order - when Graner was told to stay away from his ex-wife for a year - his ex-wife attached a narrative which detailed an occasion on which he came to her house following their divorce.

"[He] yanked me out of ... bed by my hair, dragging me and all of the covers into the hall and tried to throw me down the steps," she wrote. "Both of the children witnessed this and were screaming at this point. He let go of me, turned around to the children and said, 'See what your mommy is doing to us'."

The Army has said that Graner, England and four other soldiers are facing courts martial on charges ranging from assault, cruelty, indecent acts and maltreatment of detainees.

Abd, meanwhile, said he will go home to his family in Nasiriyah but his shame will not allow him to stay. He hopes he will receive compensation from the American authorities - and said he would even consider an offer to move to the US.

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Herald Feature: Iraq