Pregnant Lynndie to face prisoner abuse court-martial

The US army is to court-martial eight months pregnant Private Lynndie England, one of the most recognisable figures in the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

The trial scheduled for January 17 to 28, said Lieutenant General John Vines, commander of the 18th Airborne Corps,

England, a reservist stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, will face charges including counts of abuse and indecent acts. She was arraigned on Friday, and did not enter a plea.

She faces up to 38 years in jail, a dishonourable discharge and forfeiture of all pay and allowances.

The charges include conspiring to commit maltreatment of an Iraqi detainee by posing in a photograph holding a leash around the detainee. She also faces three counts of assault against a detainee, according to a press release.

Hearing officer Colonel Denise Arn suggested in a report that England was largely led astray by older soldiers in her unit, particularly her ex-boyfriend, Specialist Charles Graner.

Lawyers say Graner is the father of the child England is expecting next month.

Arn’s recommendations were based on five days of testimony from 27 witnesses in an earlier hearing.

England is one of seven members of her company charged in connection with abuse that occurred at Abu Ghraib prison late last year. Photographs of England posing with nude men stacked in a pyramid and holding a naked detainee by a leash made England a focal point of the scandal.

Her lawyers argued in the hearing that she posed for the pictures on orders from higher-ups to “soften up” Iraqi prisoners. They sought unsuccessfully to call such high-level witnesses as Vice President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Military prosecutors portrayed the abuse as the work of a renegade band of reservists.