Hearing ends for Navy Seal accused of prisoner abuse

A military court hearing ended for a Navy Seal lieutenant accused of abusing and posing in degrading photos with a handcuffed and hooded prisoner who died a short time later in Abu Ghraib prison.

The Navy officer who heard the evidence, Lt. Cmdr. William Boland, will recommend to the Navy’s top Seal whether the lieutenant should face a court-martial. Boland didn’t say yesterday when he would issue his recommendation.

In the five-day Article 32 hearing – the military equivalent of a civilian grand jury – a Navy prosecutor said the example set by the unnamed lieutenant was ”unacceptable by any standard”, but the officer’s lawyer said nothing his client did warranted a court-martial.

The lieutenant was accused of assault, maltreatment and conduct unbecoming an officer for his handling of detainees.

“In this country, we hold ourselves to a higher standard than the enemy,” Navy prosecutor Lt. Jon Freimann said at the hearing’s conclusion.

Freimann said the accused Seal lieutenant joined five to 10 Seals in assaulting a detainee who could not defend himself. Instead of stopping his men from photographing the detainee, he posed for them, the prosecutor said.

Defence lawyer Matthew Freedus said the government’s witnesses contradicted one another and that Navy guidelines about taking pictures of detainees were unclear.

In the photos, which were shown in court, the lieutenant flashed a thumbs-up while his men pointed their weapons at a hooded and handcuffed detainee in the back of a Humvee. In another photo, the lieutenant was seen kneeling next to another detainee lying on the ground wearing a pumpkin mask.

Much of the evidence in the case centred on Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi suspect in the bombing of a Red Cross facility. Al-Jamadi was captured by Seals during a joint CIA-special operations mission in November 2003. He died a few hours later under CIA interrogation in the shower room at Abu Ghraib.

Two Seals testified that al-Jamadi was able to walk and was resisting his captors when the CIA took him away in a Chevrolet Suburban with dark, tinted windows.

The hearing ended without an answer to the question of what role the CIA played in al-Jamadi’s death. Freedus was prevented from asking a former Army criminal investigator who led an inquiry into the death last year what position the prisoner was in when he died.

Boland said the question was “material, but not relevant”. He added that he would not recommend any charges related to al-Jamadi’s death.

The hearing was conducted under special security precautions. A Navy security officer monitored the hearing and halted testimony to avoid disclosing classified information. Reporters were cleared from the courtroom numerous times.

Earlier yesterday, several Seals called by the defence had high praise for the accused, calling him one of the best junior lieutenants they had seen during their service in the Navy’s Sea, Air, Land teams. They and others said a former Seal who accused his team-mates of abusing prisoners was untrustworthy.

The ex-Seal, who testified on Monday and who served under the accused in Iraq, was kicked out of the elite unit after he was convicted of stealing a fellow Seal’s bullet-proof vest. The sailor said he saw the lieutenant abuse prisoners, including al-Jamadi, three different times.

Nine members of Coronado-based Seal Team 7 and one sailor who served with the Seals in Iraq were implicated in the investigation started by the former Seal. Two lieutenants received Article 32 hearings. One Seal is awaiting a court-martial. The rest received non-judicial proceedings known in the Navy as captain’s masts.