in brief

U.S. officer details pre-Abu Ghraib abuses

WASHINGTON: A military interrogation expert, Air Force Col. Steven Kleinman, told Congress yesterday that before the abuses at Abu Ghraib, he witnessed interrogations of Iraqi detainees that he considers violations of the Geneva Conventions. One interrogation was conducted by an Air Force civilian and a contractor employed by his own organization, the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency. Kleinman said his two colleagues forcibly stripped an Iraqi prisoner naked, shackled him and left him standing in a dank, six-foot cement cell with orders to the guards that the prisoner was not to move for 12 hours. Had the prisoner passed out, he would have hit his head on a wall, Kleinman said. Kleinman stopped the interrogation, which had veered from his careful plan into abuse.

FBI arrests evangelist in Ariz. in child sex case

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.: FBI agents arrested evangelist and convicted tax evader Tony Alamo at an Arizona motel yesterday, alleging days after raiding the Arkansas headquarters of his ministry that he took minors across state lines for sexual purposes. Alamo was staying at a hotel in Flagstaff when arrested, said FBI spokesman Steve Frazier in Little Rock. The religious leader - who began his career as a California street preacher in 1966 - was scheduled for a federal court appearance today in Flagstaff. Alamo is suspected of violating the Mann Act, which prohibits taking children across state lines for illegal purposes. Frazier described those purposes as "sexual activity."