Women charged for Iraqi abuse
2004-05-08 08:48
Washington - One of six United States soldiers charged with abusing prisoners in Iraq said she acted under direct instructions from military intelligence that wanted the prisoners softened before interrogation, The Washington Post reported in its Saturday edition.
The newspaper said military police officer Sabrina Harman, who was stationed at Abu Ghraib prison, said in interviews that she was assigned to break down prisoners for interrogation.
On Friday, another female soldier who appeared in a widely published photograph leading a naked Iraqi prisoner by a leash, private first class Lynndie England, 21, was charged with maltreating a detainee.
Harman said: "They would bring in one to several prisoners at a time, already hooded and cuffed," Harman was quoted as saying in the interviews by e-mail this week from Baghdad.
"The job of the MP was to keep them awake, make it hell so they would talk."
She said her military police unit took direction from the military intelligence officers in charge of the facility and from civilian contractors there who conducted interrogations, according to The Post.
She did not discuss the abusive treatment of prisoners, who ordered the treatment, or any questions about the charges against her, the paper said.
Harman posed in a widely published photograph showing naked Iraqi detainees stacked in a pyramid.
- AFP