| Guilty sergeant says military intelligence oversaw abuse { October 21 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/10/21/sergeant_pleads_guilty_in_iraq_abuse/http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/10/21/sergeant_pleads_guilty_in_iraq_abuse/
Sergeant pleads guilty in Iraq abuse By Jackie Spinner, Washington Post | October 21, 2004
BAGHDAD -- Staff Sergeant Ivan ''Chip" Frederick, the highest-ranking soldier of eight charged with abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison last year, pleaded guilty yesterday to taking part in the mistreatment, telling a military judge that he knew his actions were wrong at the time he committed them.
In a deal with Army prosecutors, Frederick, who was in charge
Iraq says UN doing little to help in January elections. A32
of the night shift in the prison wing where detainees were abused, pleaded guilty to eight of 12 criminal counts, including a charge that he helped attach wires to a detainee with the intention of making the detainee think he might be electrocuted. The picture of that detainee -- hooded, naked, and standing on a box -- was one of several that stirred an international scandal when they surfaced six months ago.
Frederick told the judge, Colonel James Pohl, that he knew he should not have been trying to scare the detainee. ''I was wrong about what I did, and I shouldn't have done it," the 38-year-old Army reservist said. ''I knew it was wrong at the time because I knew it was a form of abuse."
Frederick, who worked at a state prison in Virginia, is the third soldier to plead guilty to taking part in the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, a sprawling compound west of Baghdad where the US military holds people deemed to be security threats.
Of seven members of the Army's 372d Military Police Company charged in the scandal, Frederick and Specialist Jeremy Sivits have pleaded guilty. Sivits was sentenced in May to a year in jail. Their unit is based in Cresaptown, Md. An eighth soldier, Army Specialist Armin Cruz, the only military intelligence soldier charged, pleaded guilty last month and was sentenced by Pohl to eight months in jail for his role in the scandal. Cruz was a reservist with the 325th Military Intelligence Battalion. The three soldiers who pleaded guilty have agreed to testify against fellow soldiers in exchange for lighter sentences.
Pohl is expected to sentence Frederick this week. The sergeant faces up to 18 years in prison.
Frederick said military intelligence soldiers ordered that detainees wear female undergarments, be kept naked, and be handcuffed to doors.
Military intelligence and civilian interrogators ''would tell us what conditions to set for them -- keep their clothes, give them cigarettes," he said.
''You took this as your role as an MP to set conditions for detainees?" Pohl asked.
''Yes, your honor," Frederick replied.
A former Iraqi detainee, the first to testify publicly at a court-martial about the abuse, said Frederick punched him and forced him to masturbate in front of other detainees who were ''crying and screaming."
Army officials asked that the man's name, which was entered into the court record, not be disclosed to protect him.
''I was crying," the former detainee said during the court-martial at Camp Victory, a large Army installation near Baghdad International Airport. ''I wanted to kill myself."
He paused and put his head down on the stand for several minutes. The man, who was detained for allegedly stealing a car and participating in a riot, said he was forced to sleep naked in a cell flooded with water.
''I felt humiliated but I had nothing to kill myself," the former detainee said.
Frederick said an Army investigator responsible for interrogations encouraged him to abuse the detainee, saying he didn't care what was done to the prisoner ''as long as you don't kill him."
© Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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