On August 3, 2004, Private Lynndie England, the woman who was shown in many photos of abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison appeared in military court that must decide if she will be sent to a court martial. She told the investigating officer that the photos of her in front of naked Iraqis "were just for fun!" Her lawyers said, referring to all the soldiers involved, "they did not think that it was that serious, they were just joking around and having some fun during the night shift!" Private England could face 19 charges and if convicted she could be condemned to 38 years in prison. The other soldiers involved will be tried in Iraq.
On August 31, 2004, preliminary military court hearings are continuing for a US soldier accused of 13 counts of abusing detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. The hearings are to decide if Private First Class Lynndie England should face a court martial. The presiding judge Tuesday denied Ms. England's request to question the general in charge of the prison at the time of the abuse, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski. Private England has maintained she was ordered to mistreat detainees by her higher-ups for interrogation tactics.
On September 1, 2004, the US military hearing investigating charges against a woman soldier accused of abusing soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has been adjourned. The judge in charge of the case is expected to decide within a week whether Pte Lynndie England should face a court martial. She is facing 19 charges, which carry a maximum of 38 years in prison. Prosecutors on Tuesday sought permission to bring a new charge of cruelty and maltreatment against Pte England. The judge has not yet ruled on the request.
On September 1, 2004, we were told that an Army investigating officer will now decide whether Pfc. Lynndie England should face a full-blown military trial on as many as 20 charges of abusing detainees and sexual misconduct, after hearing several days of testimony about the soldier's alleged crimes at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Army prosecutors added a blanket charge of maltreatment and cruelty against the 21-year-old military police administrative clerk, who was captured last fall in several digital photographs apparently humiliating and abusing naked detainees. Col. Denise Arn, who presided over England's pretrial hearing, said she would consider all the charges over the next week and then make a recommendation to a commanding officer. A three-star general here then will decide whether England will face a court-martial that could send her to prison for nearly 40 years if she is convicted. England's attorneys said Tuesday afternoon that they believed England would certainly appear in a court-martial, but they again said that she had become a scapegoat for what has turned into a sprawling abuse scandal involving dozens of soldiers.
On September 27, 2004, a US soldier seen in some of the most widely-aired photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse will face a general court martial early next year. The US Army says Private First Class Lynndie England will be put on trial January 17, 2005, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.Private England is one of seven soldiers charged in connection with abuse that took place at the Abu Ghraib prison last year. Pictures show her smiling and pointing at the genitals of naked male Iraqi prisoners. A colonel who presided over a hearing for Private England said she was largely led astray by other soldiers in her unit. She faces a total of 19 charges of abuse and indecent acts. If convicted on all counts, she could receive 38 years in prison.
On December 1, 2004, during the trial of Lynndie England, notorious to appear in many photography showing her abusing nude Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, her lawyer argued that she was coerced into admitting she and other soldiers were only "joking around, having some fun" when they posed for the photos. She faces a court martial on January 18, 2005. She will be accused of 19 charges and risks 32 years in prison if convicted on all of them.
On February 19, 2005, US military prosecutors have filed a new and reduced set of charges against army Pte. 1st Class Lynndie England in the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal, cutting by more than one-half the sentence she could face if convicted. The 22-year-old reservist who was photographed grinning in pictures of Iraqis in sexually humiliating positions was initially charged with 19 counts of abuse and indecent acts. Those charges could have put her behind bars for 38 years. But prosecutors at Fort Hood, Texas, submitted nine counts to the military court that together carry up to 16 1/2 years in prison. Prosecutors would not explain why so many counts were dropped.
A US woman soldier, Private Lynndie England, 22, is to plead guilty on Monday May 2, 2005, to abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Private Lynndie England, 22, has agreed to a plea deal that will reduce her maximum jail sentence to 11 years, instead of over 16 years. The army reservist's grinning face became the symbol of the abuse scandal inside the notorious Iraqi prison. Pictures of her holding an Iraqi inmate on a leash and pointing at inmates' genitals were among the most infamous images of the abuses.
Pfc. Lynndie England, the young Army reservist whose grinning, thumbs-up image came to symbolize the worst of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, told a military judge Monday May 2, 2005 that she knew the detainee abuses were wrong but went along because of peer pressure. Offering the most ordinary explanation to a scandal that ignited international outrage, England said she posed in some of the widely circulated photographs showing humiliating abuses of Iraqi detainees to placate her then-boyfriend and others from her unit.
A military court deciding the sentence for a key defendant in the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal was interrupted on Wednesday May 4, 2005, after the judge questioned the validity of the guilty plea. Judge Colonel James Pohl called a halt for three hours after testimony of a witness called by Lynndie England appeared to undermine her acceptance of guilt. England's smiling face on pictures of naked and humiliated Iraqis is a lasting image of the scandal, The witness, England's former boyfriend Charles Graner, had said from the stand that one of the central acts of the case -in which England, now 22, appeared holding a naked prisoner on a leash- was a legitimate prison procedure. "If you don't believe you are guilty, if you honestly believe you were doing what Graner told you to do, then you can't plead guilty," the judge said. England had agreed to plead guilty in return for a shorter sentence.
Private (first class) England has waived her right to a pre-trial hearing in US military court on May 24, 2005, to challenge the charges she faces related to prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib. Ms. England appeared in some of the most infamous photographs of the 2003 abuse scandal, including one where she appears holding a leash around the neck of a naked inmate. Earlier this month, a US military judge in Fort Hood, Texas, threw out her guilty plea after hearing testimony from the alleged ringleader of the Abu Ghraib abuse, Private Charles Graner. Graner, now serving a 10-year sentence, told the court the photos of Private England humiliating Iraqi prisoners were meant to be used as a training aid. The judge, Colonel James Pohl, said that testimony contradicted earlier statements by Private England that she knew what she did was wrong.
The re-trial of US soldier Lynndie England, the woman at the centre of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq began on September 22, 2005,. Her defence lawyer said he would argue that her learning disability made her too compliant to authority figures. She faces 11 years in jail if convicted on charges of conspiracy, committing an indecent act and maltreating detainees. England attempted a plea bargain at a court martial trial in May, but it was rejected by the judge who said testimony given during the sentencing phase contradicted her own statements to the court. At the time, Pte England said that the notorious pictures were taken for the amusement of the Abu Ghraib prison guards. However, Spc Charles Graner - her boyfriend at the time the pictures were taken - told the sentencing hearing that the photographs were meant to be used as a training aid.
US soldier Lynndie England seemed to enjoy the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and once noted that a prisoner was sexually aroused, the court martial was told on September 23, 2005. "She was laughing, she seemed to be having a good time with all that was going on," said Private Jeremy Sivits, who has served a one-year sentence for his role in the abuse scandal. England, 22, appears in some of the most infamous pictures of US abuse at Abu Ghraib, including an image in which she holds a leash to a naked Iraqi prisoner. Another prosecution witness, Specialist Matthew Wisdom, said he was briefly present when US guards forced the Iraqi prisoners -suspected of taking part in a riot- to simulate fellatio upon each other. "I heard Specialist England say 'Look, he's getting hard', referring to what I thought was his penis there," Wisdom said. England's lawyer said in opening statements on Wednesday that she was lured by Charles Graner, the father of her baby, into posing for the photographs that caused worldwide outrage. Now serving a 10-year sentence for his leading role in the scandal, Graner is expected to testify in the coming days.
US soldier Lynndie England was found guilty on Monday September 26, 2005, of abusing prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in a scandal that caused international outrage. She now faces a prison term of up to 10 years. Ms England, one of a group of reserve soldiers accused of abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib, was found guilty by a military jury on six of seven charges, including maltreatment of prisoners. She was found not guilty on a conspiracy count. Ms England showed no visible reaction as she stood at attention to hear the verdict. A military prosecutor said she humiliated prisoners because she enjoyed it and had a sick sense of humor, but her attorneys said she took part in the humiliation because of an overly compliant personality.
15.8.2 Charles Graner and Sabrina Harman
On May 20, 2004, the ABC television network in the USA showed new photographs
of abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In one two officers -Charles Graner
and Sabrina Harman, already implicated before- are seen smiling and giving
the "thumb-up" over the bruised and blooded corpse of an Iraqi detainee,
Manadel al-Jamadi. He is thought to have died following beating by CIA or
civilian interrogators in November 2003 but there are no records of how he
really died. America is really showing its ugly face and it is not only that
of a few "bad apples".
On August 23, 2004 a US soldier, the first of four soldiers to face a preliminary hearing, accused to have been one of the ringleaders in the abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib jail said to a US military court in Mannheim Germany he was being made a scapegoat. Spc Charles Graner voiced his concerns when his room was searched following claims of prisoner abuse last January. They also asked that a full trial be held in either Germany or US Iraq was too dangerous for witnesses and relatives of the suspects. He is charged with cruelty and maltreatment of prisoners as well as assault and indecent acts.
On August 23, 2004, a US soldier, Specialist Charles Graner, accused of the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal sought to strike from his court martial potentially incriminating photographs at a hearing before a military judge in Germany. Dressed in desert fatigues, the military policeman answered questions about the long hours in Iraq, sometimes 17 hours a day transferring detainees, and the stress of being under fire. Earlier, a military investigator referred to CDs, taken from Graner's laptop, with hundreds of photographs, featuring detainees being abused. Graner's lawyers said the photographs had been taken without his consent.
On January 10, 2005, the US soldier accused of being the ringleader of the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison, Charles Graner, went on trial at Fort Hood, Texas. He is charged with conspiracy to maltreat Iraqi detainees, assault, dereliction of duty and committing indecent acts.
At the trial of Spc.Charles Graner for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, a Syrian insurgent still in prison said that Graner whistled, sang and laughed while brutalising him. He also obliged the detainee to eat pork and drink alcohol in violation of his Muslim faith. Another Iraqi detainee said that he was part of a group of prisoners stripped by Graner and other guards, staked up in a human pyramid while female soldiers watched and later told them to masturbate.
On January 14, 2005, the Army reservist Charles Graner the Abu Ghraib prison guard was convicted. The jury of the military Court Martial found him guilty of all ten but one count. He was found guilty of assault, maltreatment and conspiracy. On January 15 he was condemned to ten years in prison. The maximum penalty was 15 years.
On January 15, 2005, Charles Graner was condemned to ten years in prison for the abuses of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. He confirmed that he was told by his superiors to do what he did and was complimented for his good job. He was reduced in rang to private and dishonourably discharged from the military. The judgement goes automatically to appeal and he could also request clemency from his commanding general.
A soldier already convicted of abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal has testified on May 13, 2005, that he was the one who attached wires to a naked, hooded Iraqi in an attempt to find the bodies of four US soldiers and locate their killers. Private Ivan Frederick's testimony did not help the government's case against former pizza restaurant worker Specialist Sabrina Harman, who the government has charged with placing wires on the prisoner pictured in a photo that sparked global outrage.Harman faces six-and-a-half years in prison if convicted on all charges, which include posing with a broad smile before a pyramid of naked detainees and attaching wires to the Iraqi and telling him he would be electrocuted if he stepped off a box.
On May 17, 2005, a US military court found Army reservist Sabrina Harman guilty of abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison. The 27-year-old was found guilty on six of seven counts - four counts of mistreating detainees, one count of conspiracy, and one count of dereliction of duty- and now faces up to five-and-a-half years in jail. She was cleared on one charge of mistreating prisoners by photographing and filming prisoners forced to masturbate at the jail. A military jury sentenced her to six months in jail on May 18. During sentencing the 27-year-old apologised for the mistreatment.
On January 7, 2005, it was decided that three Iraqi detainees who said that there were abused in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq will testify in the trial of the main accused, Spc. Charles Graner. It is foreseen that all together 35 witnesses will be called. The Iraqi detainees will be heard by videotape. The jury will hear some of Graner's colleagues involved in the abuses; some of them pleaded guilty.
15.8.3 Military doctors involved?
On August 20, 2004, it was revealed that doctors working for the US military
in Iraq collaborated with interrogators in the abuse of detainees at Baghdad's
Abu Ghraib prison, breaching medical ethics and human rights, according to
The Lancet medical journal. In an analysis of the behaviour of military doctors,
nurses and medics, University of Minnesota professor Steven Miles calls for
a reform of military medicine and an official investigation into the role
played by physicians and other medical staff in the torture scandal. He cites
evidence that doctors or medics falsified death certificates to cover up homicides,
hid evidence of beatings and revived a prisoner so he could be further tortured.
On August 21, 2004, the British medical journal The Lancet reported that US Army doctors at Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq helped design abusive interrogation methods and failed to report deaths triggered by beatings, according to a report. A Red Cross spokesman in Geneva said jailers had an obligation to provide sufficient medical aid to captives. In Washington, the Pentagon said it had no evidence that military medical personnel had collaborated with abuse by interrogators or guards or condoned such behaviour.
15.8.4 Specialist Jeremy Sivits
On May 14, 2004, the first US soldier to face a public court martial in Baghdad
-foreseen for Wednesday May 19- in relation to the torture of Iraqi prisoners,
Specialist Jeremy Sivits, provided some more details about what went on at
Abu Ghraib prison. Guards jumped on human pyramids of naked bodies, forced
them to masturbate, and to pose in sexual sex acts for their cameras. It is
believed that he made a deal with the prosecution to testify against his colleagues
in exchange for a shorter sentence. He will also say that the senior jail
officers did not know anything about what was going on, but that he was following
orders and that he thought they were lawful. Now he faces a one-year stay
in jail. The Pentagon, to try to diffuse the crisis, released 300 prisoners.
On May 19, 2004, the US martial court in Baghdad condemned the first soldiers involved in torture and abuses in Abu Ghraib prison to one year in jail, the maximum possible sentence. Specialist Jeremy Sivits was also degraded and thrown out of the army. He pleads guilty and apologised to the Army, his parents and friends and to the Iraqis, but he added that he had been forced to do what he did by military interrogators to facilitate their job.
On August 30, 2004, the first American soldier convicted in the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal, Private Jeremy Sivits, testified that Private Lynndie England, the soldier photographed holding an Iraqi on a leash, stomped on prisoners' fingers and toes. Testifying by phone from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Sivits told the court that he saw England standing behind a group of prisoners on the floor when he entered the Abu Ghraib cellblock known as Tier 1 on November 8, 2003. Sivits encountered England, Staff Sergeant "Chip" Frederick, Charles Graner and others with a group of detainees who had supposedly tried to start a riot. "They were stomping on the fingers and toes of the detainees," Sivits said, referring to England and Graner. England, wearing a maternity camouflage uniform, listened to the testimony in the Fort Bragg courtroom.
15.8.5 Staff Sergeant Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick
On August 24, 2004, one of the Army reservists charged with abusing Iraqi
detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, Staff Sergeant Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick,
said that he will plead guilty to some offenses. Frederick does not specify
the charges to which he will plead guilty, and it wasn't clear whether he
will continue contesting any of the allegations. He is charged with maltreating
detainees, conspiracy to maltreat detainees, dereliction of duty and wrongfully
committing an indecent act.
A US soldier at the heart of a prisoner abuse scandal pleaded guilty to a range of charges on October 20, 2004. At a US military court in Baghdad, Staff Sergeant Ivan "Chip" Frederick pleaded guilty to five charges of abusing prisoners at Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, although he did not admit full guilt on all charges. The first of three military police officers due to appear before a court martial this week, Frederick offered a rare insight into what went on behind the walls of the detention centre where pictures of grinning US soldiers posing by a heap of naked Iraqi men sparked worldwide outrage earlier this year. The extent of the alleged abuse became even more apparent when a prisoner also testified, describing being hit and humiliated to the point of wanting to die. Frederick, the highest-ranking soldier accused in the affair, admitted to making an inmate masturbate and punching him, while attaching wires to another prisoner who thought he would be electrocuted and taking photographs for his own pleasure. Sergeant Javal Davis and Specialist Charles Graner are due to appear before a judge at Camp Victory later this week.
US Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick was sentenced to eight years in prison on Thursday October 21, 2004, for sexually and physically abusing detainees at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad. He also punched one prisoner so hard in the chest that he needed resuscitation. Judge Colonel James Pohl also sentenced Frederick, 38, to a reduction in rank to private, to forfeiture of pay and a dishonourable discharge from the army. Frederick's lawyer called the sentence "excessive" and said he intended to appeal. Frederick, the most senior enlisted man charged in the Abu Ghraib scandal, had pleaded guilty to five charges of abusing detainees at the facility.
15.8.6 Baha Mousa
The family of Baha Mousa, an Iraqi hotel receptionist, who died while in British
custody 20 months ago were finally happy to learn on May 22, 2005, that the
British military authorities have finally decided to investigate the role
played by senior officer in the incident. In particular, Colonel Jorge Mewendonca,
the regiment involved commanding officer at the time will be investigated
together with other officers. In addition to Mousa's death, eight Iraqi detained
are saying that they were tortured and abused by soldiers of the same unit.