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US private guilty of abuse
26/09/2005 22:48 - (SA)
Fort Hood - A United States military panel on Monday found private Lynndie England guilty on six of seven counts of mistreating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison near Baghdad.
The panel of five officers found her not guilty of conspiring to maltreat a prisoner in the incident which made her infamous - holding the leash tied to the neck of a naked prisoner.
A sentencing hearing was to start later in the day. England faces up to 10 years in prison.
She became the public face of the scandal which dealt a body blow to the credibility of the US-led occupation of Iraq after photographs, taken in October and November of 2002, of the private holding a naked prisoner by a dog leash attached to his neck were broadcast around the world.
England sat silently in the courtroom as the verdict was read.
Unlike at her first trial, neither her parents nor her baby, fathered by abuse ring-leader Charles Graner, were present.
Her lawyers had argued England's learning disability and a compliant personality led the 22-year-old private to follow instructions from the charismatic Graner.
The prosecution argued that England was having fun while she stepped on the toes of naked prisoners forced to form a human pyramid and posed for pictures pointing at the genitals of naked, hooded Iraqis.
They have also argued that all US soldiers are given sufficient training to know that physical and mental abuse of prisoners is against the law.
- AFP
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