US military dog handlers face Abu Ghraib hearing

FORT MEADE, Maryland - US Army dog handlers in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison used unmuzzled dogs to threaten naked prisoners and competed to see who could make inmates urinate on themselves, according to testimony at a military hearing today.

Sergeant Santos Cardona, 31, and Sergeant Michael Smith, 24, are accused of maltreating detainees at the infamous Baghdad prison between November 2003 and January 2004.

Today's legal proceedings for the dog handlers at Fort Meade military base outside Washington were part of an Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a pretrial hearing that determines whether the two sergeants face courts-martial.

Disturbing photos of dogs barking and growling at inmates were broadcast worldwide in the abuse scandal. In other trials, several US soldiers have already been sentenced for abusing inmates, with jail terms up to 10 years.

Smith and Cardona told investigators last year military intelligence personnel asked them to bring their dogs to prison interrogation sites. The use of unmuzzled dogs to humiliate and intimidate detainees is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Under Islam, dogs are considered ritually unclean so their use against Islamic detainees could add a deeper layer of fear and apprehension for the prisoners.

Private Ivan Frederick, convicted of abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib, testified via telephone that in one instance Cardona's dog bit a naked inmate twice on the left and right thighs.

Frederick said the military police dog handlers told him they were in a competition to see how many detainees they could scare into urinating and defecating on themselves.

"They were kind of laughing about it," said Frederick, who is serving an eight-year prison term at Fort Leavenworth prison in Kansas.

But Cardona's civilian defence lawyer Harvey Volzer disputed Frederick's claims and said he was testifying in a bid to have his sentence reduced. He told reporters afterward the urination contest claims were untrue.

Another witness, Spec. John Ketzer, also testified by telephone and said dogs had been used to frighten two juvenile detainees, both of them under 15 years of age.

Questions have been raised over who gave approval for dogs to be used during interrogations.

Staff Segeant Christopher Aston, speaking from Afghanistan, said Colonel Thomas Pappas, head of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade at Abu Ghraib, told him he was given approval from his superiors to use the dogs.

Aston said he asked for specific permission to use dogs to help with the interrogation of three detainees brought in at the same time as ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in mid-December, 2003,

Unmuzzled dogs were placed at the threshold of the interrogation room, but Aston said he did not believe they made any difference in getting the detainees to talk.

- REUTERS