Women had to ridicule inmates

2005-01-13 20:57

Patrick Moser

Fort Hood, Texas - Interrogators at Abu Ghraib routinely told female soldiers to ridicule naked detainees and asked MPs to rough up a prisoner, a witness said on Thursday at a court martial examining abuses at the US-run Iraqi prison.

"They wanted me to be in the shower, point to the detainees' genitals and laugh," said Megan Ambuhl, a former soldier who was dismissed from the US Army last year after pleading guilty in the prisoner abuse scandal.

This happened "fairly often" and also involved other female MPs, she said in testimony before the court at the Fort Hood army base in Texas.

Following orders

Ambuhl was called to the witness stand by lawyers for specialist Charles Graner, who have struggled to demonstrate that their client was merely following orders.

Graner, 36, had pleaded not guilty to charges of abusing inmates at the prison near Baghdad in late 2003.

Ambuhl said that in one case two interrogators encouraged Graner and another MP to "go in and rough up the detainee," but admitted under cross-questioning that the two were low-ranking soldiers in their early 20s.

She also acknowledged hearing a civilian contractor say that MPs should "soften up" a detainee she said was a member of the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

But under cross-examination, she admitted that she had never heard of any orders to pile up naked detainees, force them to masturbate or put them on a leash - acts which Graner is accused of conducting.

E-mail

She admitted that while at Abu Ghraib, she started an affair with Graner. The defendant also was involved with another accused soldier, Private Lynndie England, whose recently born child he is believed to have fathered.

The prosecution cited an e-mail in which Ambuhl wrote to Graner: "Study finds frequent sex raises cancer risk - we could have died last night."

The message was sent in April 2004, three months after Graner, Ambuhl, England and others were charged in the prison scandal.

The prosecution cast doubt on the veracity of some of Ambuhl's testimony, particularly when she suggested that Graner had not initiated a notorious incident in which prisoners were made to masturbate and simulate oral sex.

Graner said he looked forward to the opportunity to defend himself, but his lawyers said they had yet to decide whether to put him on the stand.

Graner faces a maximum sentence of 17 and a half years' imprisonment if found guilty.

- AFP