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Intelligence officer asked guard to humiliate detainees

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   http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=7321051

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=7321051

Abu Ghraib Guard's Ex-Lover Says Told to Humiliate
Thu Jan 13, 2005 02:33 PM ET


By Adam Tanner
FORT HOOD, Texas (Reuters) - A former military policewoman testified on Thursday that an intelligence officer at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison asked her to mock the genitals of naked detainees, supporting defense contentions that guards were following intelligence orders.

In the strongest defense testimony to date, Megan Ambuhl said at the court-martial of Spc. Charles Graner, portrayed as the lead figure in the 2003 prisoner abuse scandal, that military interrogators would tell the guards what to do with detainees.

Seven military police and one intelligence officer were charged in the case, in which detainees were photographed naked in sexually humiliating positions. Graner faces up to 17 1/2 years in prison in a trial officials hope to conclude this week.

Defense told jurors in the morning Graner would testify but unexpectedly rested their case Thursday afternoon.

Ambuhl, who worked with Graner at the prison and admitted under cross-examination for the first time in public to having a sexual relationship with him, pleaded guilty last year to one count of dereliction of duty and was spared prison time.

"They would come down with their detainees and let us know what they wanted us to do with them," Ambuhl said, referring to military interrogators. "They might say this guy is cooperating, not cooperating."

In one instance, she said an intelligence interrogator asked her to watch a male detainee shower even though prisoners usually had privacy. "They wanted me to go in the shower and point at the genital area and laugh at them," she said.

Another time, a civilian interrogator ordered her to deal with a detainee called "al Qaeda" because he was a suspected member of the network, said Ambuhl, who was present when a naked Iraqi prisoner was leashed and photographed.

"Steve (the interrogator) told us we were doing a good job and that breaking al Qaeda (the prisoner) would have a global impact and save a lot of lives," she said.

CONFUSED COMMAND STRUCTURE

Ambuhl, testifying on the second day of defense witnesses, said she had heard two military intelligence officers ask Graner and Pvt. Ivan Frederick, who is serving an eight-year sentence in the case, to rough up a detainee.

"I feel good, I feel good. I almost cried at one point but I'm doing good," Graner told reporters after Ambuhl's testimony.

Witnesses have described a confused command structure at Abu Ghraib in which military police ran the prison, interacting with civilian and military interrogators and other intelligence agencies.

Graner's lawyers argue that he was acting at the behest of these interrogators. The abuse of Iraqi prisoners included repeated beatings, stacking detainees into a naked human pyramid, and putting a leash on a man.

A second witness from Graner's unit said he saw military intelligence officials bind together three naked Iraqis accused of raping an Iraqi boy. Kenneth Davis said Graner assisted three military intelligence officers, even though he outranked them, and followed their request to shout at one man to undress.

"It was enough to scare me; Graner has a drill instructor's voice," he said. "It appeared that MI was calling the shots that night and Graner was following suit."

In questioning, prosecutors highlighted that the rapists were not intelligence targets.

The court viewed photos of the three bound prisoners from that October 2003 night taken by Pfc. Lynndie England, a clerk with whom Graner later fathered a child and who also is facing a court-martial.

The photos of England holding a naked prisoner on a leash and others shocked the world and turned the abuse scandal into a major U.S. foreign policy setback.



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