Judge tells US army to speed up prisoner abuse probe
He also warned that delays could derail the case against at least one of the accused soldiers.
At a hearing at a US military base in Germany, Judge Colonel James Pohl issued a September 10 target for the government to complete three investigative reports so they can be used as evidence in hearings of soldiers charged with the abuse.
Judge Pohl expressed particular displeasure after being told that a lone army criminal investigator was reviewing thousands of pages of records of a secret computer server at Abu Ghraib.
Turning to the military prosecutor, Judge Pohl said he wanted to have the report on the server inquiry available by December 1.
But he added he would “seriously revisit” a defence motion to dismiss the case against Specialist Charles Graner at the next hearing in October in Baghdad if there was no sign of progress by then.
“The government has to figure out what they want to do with the prosecution of this case,” the judge said testily.
Judge Pohl also voiced frustration at the pace of other military investigations.
Graner had his case heard for several hours today - the first of four US soldiers facing hearings there this week.
In a morning of legal sparring, his lawyers suggested Graner had been too tired to make a clear decision about his rights when he allowed investigators to take a laptop and CDs from his quarters at the prison in January.
But Judge Pohl rejected a defence request to bar anything found on the laptop as evidence.
When computer specialists looked at the laptop and 11 CDs found in the search, they discovered “numerous, dozens of pictures related to the investigation”, an investigating agent Tyler Pieron told the hearing.
Graner’s civilian lawyer, Guy Womack, maintained that his client was simply doing what he was told to do by superiors.
Graner and others questioned their command, “but they were consistently told to follow those orders,” Mr Womack said outside the courtroom.
Graner became known worldwide from the picture of him posing for the camera with his thumbs up behind a pile of naked prisoners.
He has been accused of jumping on prisoners as they lay on the ground, stomping on the hands and bare feet of several prisoners, and punching one inmate in the temple so hard that he lost consciousness.
Additionally, he faces adultery charges for having sex with Private Lynndie England, who is now pregnant with his child.
Later, Judge Pohl cut short a hearing of Specialist Megan Ambuhl because it emerged that some of the abuse-related charges against her were filed after her so-called Article 32 investigation, the military equivalent of a US grand jury hearing.
Judge Pohl ordered her Article 32 hearing reopened in Baghdad to determine whether the additional charges against Ambuhl, of Centreville, Virginia, are warranted.
One of the Army reservists charged with abusing Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison said today that he will plead guilty to some offences.
Staff Sergeant Ivan “Chip” Frederick, a member of the Maryland-based 372nd Military Police Company, said in a statement that he accepts responsibility for his actions and that he broke the law.
Frederick does not specify the charges to which he will plead guilty. He is charged with maltreating detainees, conspiracy to maltreat detainees, dereliction of duty and wrongfully committing an indecent act.
He has a pre-trial hearing scheduled for tomorrow in Mannheim.
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