England guilty

US ARMY reservist Lynndie England, who was famously pictured with a naked Iraqi prisoner on a leash in Abu Ghraib prison, pleaded guilty to seven charges of abuse yesterday, which could carry a sentence of 11 years.

The judge at her military trial, Colonel James Pohl, called a break in the proceedings to consider whether to accept her plea, prompted by remarks in court in which she said she did not believe at the time that her actions were wrong.

The plea was worked out with prosecutors, who had dropped two of the charges as part of a deal.

Questioned by Col Pohl about the incident portrayed in the leash picture, England, 22, said she had visited that section of the sprawling prison to see Sergeant Charles Graner, with whom she was involved sexually.

“(Graner) handed me the leash and said hold this, I’m going to take a picture,” the diminutive soldier said. “He wanted it to look more ... humiliating if a female of my size would hold it.”

She added: “I assumed it was OK because he was an MP (military policeman). He had the background as a corrections officer and with him being older than me I thought he knew what he was doing.”

Graner, a former prisons officer by whom England has since had a child, was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a military tribunal in January for his part in the abuse. He is expected to testify this week in England’s sentencing hearing.

England, of Fort Ashby, West Virginia, said she just followed orders and her lawyer, Captain Jonathan Crisp, has said he hopes she will receive a reduced punishment because of mental shortcomings.

“The government has certainly been more amenable as of late than they were initially. I think they recognise her ultimate role in this is not what it was initially thought to be. She was a pawn,” Capt Crisp said last week.

England was the seventh guard at the prison outside Baghdad to plead guilty to the abuse of prisoners. The sentencing phase of her trial is expected to start today.