US sets public court martial in abuse case

8.00am - By ALASTAIR MacDONALD

BAGHDAD - A 24-year-old military policeman will face a public court martial in Baghdad next week, the first of seven American soldiers to be tried on charges of abusing Iraqi prisoners, a US military spokesman said on Sunday.

Stung by graphic images of humiliation that have hardened Arab anger at the United States, the army promised full media access when Specialist Jeremy Sivits goes on trial on May 19, but it was unclear if the court hearings would be televised.

"It is not our intention to hide anything," Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told a news conference, though he has insisted there would be no "show trial".

Sivits, who faces three charges, including one of maltreating detainees, is one of seven military police to be charged with abusing prisoners in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, a facility notorious for brutality under Saddam Hussein.

The case was opened in January but blew up into a major scandal 10 days ago when a US television station published photographs showing grinning soldiers at Abu Ghraib with naked and hooded Iraqis in sexually humiliating postures.

Sivits took many of the photographs, military sources say.

The Washington Post quoted a Pentagon official on Sunday as saying that more shocking images, including video featuring "live-action abuse", could be released soon. Pictures featuring dogs menacing naked detainees were published on Sunday.

Despite new assurances from President George W Bush that the ill-treatment was the "wrongdoing of a few" evidence has mounted of widespread abuses which have fuelled Iraqi anger.

"Cases of torture of Iraqi prisoners are not isolated incidents and they are not limited to Abu Ghraib prison, nor to the ... US MPs," a spokeswoman for the Iraqi Human Rights Organisation told a news conference in Baghdad jointly hosted by an American group, the Christian Peacemakers.

Several Iraqis made horrific allegations at the event of electric shocks, beating and threats in US custody.

"I was naked apart from my underpants and they poured water on my back and then electrified me with an electrical stick," said Issam al-Hammad, who also accused US troops of torturing his father, an Iraqi general, to death.

Violence also continues to trouble the run-up to a planned handover of sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30.

An explosion at a crowded market in Baghdad on Sunday killed at least three Iraqis and wounded nine, including six policemen, Kimmitt said. Hospital staff said seven people died.

Three Iraqi policemen, two civilians and a guerrilla fighter also died in a shooting incident in Baghdad, Kimmitt added.

There were more scattered clashes between troops and the Mehdi Army militia loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Kimmitt said 18 militiamen were killed in the Shi'ite Sadr City stronghold in Baghdad on Sunday. It was not possible to verify the casualty toll, but witnesses did see exchanges of fire, including mortar rounds. On Saturday evening, US troops, backed by tanks, raided Sadr's local office and arrested several aides, one of whom Kimmitt described as a financier.

Around Sadr's main stronghold of Najaf, south of Baghdad, US tanks opened fire from a base on the edge of the Shi'ite holy city after taking mortar rounds from suspected Sadr fighters. Several buildings were set on fire and hospital staff said at least three people were killed.

Further south, there was sporadic fighting between the Mehdi Army and British troops in Basra, where a British military spokesman said three soldiers were wounded in a grenade attack.

He said British troops came under mortar fire overnight in Amara, but denied residents' accounts of an air strike.

Mehdi Army fighters were out in Basra but the city was calm a day after they fought with British troops in the city.

The US military has stepped up operations against Sadr in recent days, cracking down on the uprising the cleric launched against the US-led occupation a month ago across the south.

Spurred on by rival Shi'ite leaders exasperated by the young firebrand, troops have reasserted control in many areas but not in Najaf, where Sadr himself has taken refuge.

Elsewhere, gunmen killed an Iraqi police colonel in the Sunni Muslim town of Baquba, north of Baghdad. A US soldier was killed in a mortar attack on a military base in the northern city of Mosul on Saturday, the US military said.

The death took to 559 the number of US military personnel killed in action in Iraq since the invasion 14 months ago.

The bloodshed and dismay among Iraqis and Americans at the torture and murder of prisoners by US soldiers has not helped Bush's task in justifying his Iraq campaign to voters.

The most recent Gallup poll showed his approval rating on Iraq had fallen by almost a third to 42 per cent since January.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq