England ‘willing participant’ in Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse

A SOLDIER already convicted in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal testified yesterday that fellow Army reservist Private Lynndie England was a willing participant in creating the “human pyramid” of naked Iraqi detainees shown in infamous photographs from Iraq.

Private Jeremy C Sivits testified at a hearing in England’s case that he helped escort one detainee into the Baghdad prison one night in December 2003. He said a sergeant who was in charge yelled at England and another soldier for “stomping on the fingers and toes” of a detainee.

After that sergeant left, Sivits testified, he watched as Specialist Charles Graner Jr and others stacked seven naked detainees, who had bags over their heads, in the human pyramid and photographed them.