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Pictures taken 'for fun'
16/05/2004 09:02 - (SA)
Washington - A US woman soldier who is being investigated for mistreating Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib jail has told investigators that some of the pictures of detainees masturbating and piled naked were taken for fun, The New York Times reported on Sunday, giving reported details of the abuse.
"We thought it looked funny so pictures were taken," the newspaper quotes Private First Class Lynndie England as saying.
England's statement, made May 5, describes abuse at Abu Ghraib as routine and sometimes amusing, but almost never, to her mind, out of bounds, according to the report.
She explains how she put a strap around a detainee's neck and forced him and others to run and crawl down a hallway for "approximately four to six hours;" how one soldier would regularly throw a football at detainees with bags over their heads "to scare them;" how one soldier would kick detainees and cause open wounds, then "would personally stitch detainees if the wound weren't too bad," according to a copy of her statement given to The Times.
Asked if she ever physically abused a detainee, England said, "Yes, I stepped on some of them, push them or pull them, but nothing extreme," according to the account.
She described how Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick punched detainees, "and the normal stuff as far as lean on them or push them".
"He also played some mind games with some of them with chemical lights," the report quotes England as saying. "He would tell them to lift their legs and place the chemical light under their feet and tell them it was a knife.
"The chemical light would then be broken and spilled on the ground, the detainee would then be forced to crawl through it and then placed in a dark cell, this would freak out the detainee because they would glow."
- AFP
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