Abu Ghraib

FORT HOOD, Texas -- Pfc. Lynndie R. England, a 22-year-old Army file clerk whose smirking photographs came to exemplify the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, was convicted yesterday of joining in the abuse when she posed next to detainees who had been stripped and put into humiliating poses. After deliberating for slightly more than two hours, the jury, made up of five male Army officers, found England guilty of six out of seven counts of conspiracy and maltreatment of Iraqi prisoners, including an episode when she was photographed holding a strap tied as a leash around a naked detainee's neck.

FORT HOOD, TEXAS -- Acknowledging Pfc. Lynndie R. England's participation in some of the most notorious abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, a lawyer for the young Army reservist asked the jury yesterday to look beyond the photos in which she appeared with nude detainees posed in pyramids and in sexually humiliating positions. "The pictures are indisputable," Capt. Jonathan Crisp told the five Army officers serving as jurors. "The defense is not going to say that was not Lynndie England. The defense is not going to say that what those pictures show didn't happen.

FORT HOOD, TEXAS -- A military judge ruled yesterday that prosecutors can use one of two statements Pfc. Lynndie R. England gave to Army investigators when they first questioned her in January 2004 about the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison. The decision was a setback for England, who appeared in some of the most notorious photos of the prison scandal. Defense lawyers argued that she did not understand the consequences of waiving her rights against self-incrimination when she agreed to speak to investigators.

The last scheduled court-martial of an Army reservist arising from the Abu Ghraib prison investigations begins today in Fort Hood, Texas, with the trial of Pfc. Lynndie R. England, who became a lightning rod of international outrage in photographs showing her holding a naked Iraqi detainee on a leash. The 22-year-old, who was stationed in 2003 with military police in Iraq, pleaded guilty to seven charges in May, but the judge tossed out that deal when complications arose during sentencing, sending the case back for a new trial.

A former warden of Abu Ghraib prison told a hushed courtroom yesterday that interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo Bay were imported to the prison in Iraq. His testimony was a defense effort to tie higher-ups to allegations of prisoner abuse by two dog handlers who could face courts-martial. Maj. David Dinenna testified at a hearing at Fort Meade yesterday that Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the Guantanamo commander, talked in a September 2003 trip about how effective dogs could be at the Abu Ghraib compound outside Baghdad.

A reservist convicted of abusing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq testified yesterday that two Army dog handlers set their dogs on prisoners and laughed about a competition to scare prisoners into urinating on themselves. The accusations against Sgt. Santos A. Cardona and Sgt. Michael J. Smith came on the first day of an Article 32 hearing at Fort Meade. The hearing is the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding and was the first such Iraqi prisoner abuse hearing to be held in Maryland.

WASHINGTON - An Army general who has been criticized for his role in the treatment of prisoners at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has contradicted his sworn congressional testimony about contacts with senior Pentagon officials. Gen. Geoffrey Miller told the Senate Armed Services Committee in May 2004 that he had only filed a report on a recent visit to Abu Ghraib, and did not talk to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld or his top aides about the fact-finding trip.

WASHINGTON - The second of two Army dog handlers accused in the Abu Ghraib scandal is emerging as the lead defendant, with criminal charge sheets obtained yesterday accusing him of abusing five Iraqi detainees, including a pair of juvenile prisoners, in a macabre game to frighten inmates at the American-run prison outside Baghdad. Army Sgt. Michael J. Smith, expected to appear soon at a preliminary hearing at Fort Myer, Va., is one of two soldiers accused of using trained military dogs to assault prisoners by scaring them into urinating and defecating on themselves.

WASHINGTON - Army officials named two military dog handlers at Abu Ghraib prison in criminal charges yesterday, alleging that they used their unmuzzled animals to "threaten and harass detainees" and scare them into cooperating with interrogators. The two sergeants are the first dog handlers to be named as criminal defendants in the abuses at the prison outside Baghdad. Photos of dogs barking and growling at inmates, some of them naked, were among the scenes of detainee torture that were broadcast around the world.

WASHINGTON - The officer in charge of interrogations at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where prisoners were abused and humiliated, has been cited for two counts of dereliction of duty, received a formal reprimand and an $8,000 fine, Army officials said yesterday. But officials said no decision had been made whether to relieve Col. Thomas M. Pappas of command as head of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, a move that would all but end his 24-year military career. The administrative penalties, which resulted from a disciplinary proceeding, mark the first time an Army supervisor directly assigned to Abu Ghraib has been formally punished.