US soldier jailed for part in prisoner torture

An American soldier was jailed today for his part in the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad.

He became the first guard from the notorious jail to face a court martial for the torture of prisoners.

Specialist Jeremy Sivits pleaded guilty to three counts of abuse after reaching a plea bargain with prosecutors.

Sivits was sentenced to a maximum penalty of one year in prison, reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge. He apologised to the Iraqi people.

“I’d like to apologise to the Iraqi people and those detainees,” Sivits said, breaking down in tears as he made his statement.

“I should have protected those detainees, not taken the photos.”

“I have learned huge lessons, sir,” he added. “You can’t let people abuse people like they have done.”

His lawyer, 1st Lieutenant Stanley Martin, had appealed to the judge, Colonel James Pohl, to be lenient, saying Sivits could be rehabilitated and had made a contribution to society in the past.

Sivits took pictures of naked Iraqi prisoners being humiliated at Abu Ghraib prison.

He told the court he saw one US soldier punch one Iraqi in the head and other guards stamp on the hands and feet of detainees.

He also recounted that prisoners were stripped and forced to form a human pyramid.

“I wanted to help the people of Iraq,” Sivits said. “You’ve got to stand up for what’s right. I’m truly sorry for what I’ve done.”

The military court, sitting in Baghdad’s heavily guarded Green Zone, found Sivits guilty of all charges.

Sivits, at times struggling to hold back tears, was charged with mistreating detainees, dereliction of duty for failing to protect them from abuse, cruelty and forcing a prisoner “to be positioned in a pile on the floor to be assaulted by other soldiers.”

Sivits took pictures of naked Iraqi prisoners being sexually humiliated at Abu Ghraib.

In an emotional description of the events that took place in the Abu Ghraib prison on the evening of November 8, Sivits said he was asked by Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick to accompany him to the prison facility.

Sivits struggled to describe the events, pausing while telling the judge what happened.

He said he was on detail outside Abu Ghraib and had done some maintenance work on generators when Frederick asked him to accompany him to the prison.

Sivits took a detainee with him and when he arrived at the scene where the crimes took place, there were seven other detainees there.

“I heard Corporal Graner yelling in Arabic at the detainees,” he said. “I saw one of the detainees lying on the floor. They were laying there on the floor, sandbags over their heads.”

Sergeant Javal Davis, aged 26, and a woman soldier, Private Lynndie England, aged 21, were “stamping on their toes and hands.”

“Graner punched the detainee in the head or temple area,” Sivits said. “I said. ‘I think you might have knocked him out.”’

Sivits also said: “Graner complained that he had injured his hand and said, “Damn, that hurt.“’

Sivits said all prisoners were then stripped and forced to form a human pyramid.

Sivits quoted one of the other six accused soldiers, whom he did not identify, as saying guards were “told to keep doing what they were doing by military intelligence”.

He added, however, that he did not believe the soldier.

Earlier, three other accused – Davis, Frederick and Graner – appeared for arraignment in the courtroom at the Baghdad Convention Centre.

All three waived their right to have the charges read in court and deferred their pleas pending another hearing on June 21.

The US military allowed news coverage of the proceedings in the hope it will demonstrate American resolve to determine who was responsible for the abuse and punish the guilty.

Nine Arab newspapers and the prominent Arab television networks Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya are among 34 news organisations being allowed to have reporters in the courtroom.

No audio or TV recordings will be allowed in the courtroom, however.

Human Rights Watch complained that US occupation authorities have refused to allow Iraqi and international human rights groups to attend the court martial.

The scandal broke last month with the broadcast and publication of pictures of prisoners suffering sexual humiliation and other brutality at the hands of American MPs serving as guards at Abu Ghraib.

The pictures generated a wave of international outrage and called into question the US administration’s moral standing in its campaign to bring democracy to Iraq.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which inspects prisons in Iraq and elsewhere, issued a report on conditions at Abu Ghraib that said some acts against detainees were “tantamount to torture.”

It said the abuse included brutality, forcing people to wear hoods, humiliation and threats of execution.

The report also said intelligence officers of the US-led coalition had told Red Cross officials that up to 90% of Iraqi detainees had been arrested by mistake.