US soldier convicted of abusing Iraqi prisoners

A US Army specialist was sentenced to eight months confinement today after he admitted abusing inmates at Abu Ghraib prison.

He is the first Military Intelligence soldier to stand trial in the scandal that has so far focused upon prison guard reservists.

Spc. Armin J Cruz, of Plano, Texas, was assigned to the 325th Military Intelligence Battalion at the grim jail on the western edge of Baghdad. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy and to maltreatment of prisoners.

The military judge, Col James Pohl, sentenced Cruz to eight months confinement, reduction in rank and bad conduct discharge.

The prosecution alleged Cruz forced naked prisoners to crawl along the floor and later handcuffed the men together. Cruz would have received a year in prison. However, the 24-year-old soldier broke down in tears as he told the judge that the abuse occurred a month after a mortar attack killed his sergeant and another American soldier.

Defence attorney Stephen P Karns argued that Cruz was suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome. Chief prosecutor Maj. Michael R. Holley said Cruz was not forced to take part in the abuse and that his actions contributed ”to the tarnishing of the reputation and the image of US forces”.

Cruz became the second soldier convicted so far in the prison scandal, which broke last spring when CBS’ “60 Minutes” broadcast photos of Iraqi prisoners enduring sexual and other humiliation at the hands of grinning American guards.

In May, Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits pleaded guilty to four counts of abuse at his court-martial and was sentenced to a year in prison, reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge.

Six other enlisted soldiers from the 372nd Military Police Company, an Army Reserve unit based in Cresaptown, Maryland, face charges in the scandal.

However, lawyers for the accused MPs have long contended that their clients were acting under instructions of intelligence agents and civilian contractors, who pushed them to “soften up” prisoners suspected of having information about attacks against Americans.