FORT BRAGG, N.C., 6 August 2004 — Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison identified Pfc. Lynndie England as among the soldiers who abused them, an Army investigator testified yesterday.
“The detainees were very specific about the guards who were there,” including England, Special Agent Manora Iem testified at a military pretrial hearing.
Iem, who spoke by telephone, said he began interviewing prisoners in January, after investigators were given a computer disk containing the now-notorious photographs in which England and others are shown with naked detainees in sexually humiliating positions.
He said detainees described “a soldier who fit the description” of England, as well as other soldiers on the night shift who included England’s boyfriend, Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr.
Other witnesses at the hearing have testified that England, who worked during the day in an office part of the prison as a paperwork clerk, would go to the secured “hard site” in the middle of the night to visit Graner, who worked there as a guard. England’s is now seven months pregnant with Graner’s child.
A string of prosecution witnesses have described the 21-year-old reservist from Fort Ashby, West Virginia, as undisciplined and promiscuous, part of the government’s strategy of portraying her as one of a handful of rogue soldiers from her 372nd Military Police Company who took it upon themselves to abuse detainees.
Defense lawyers have said England was following orders when she was photographed mocking the detainees and that the US government has made her a scapegoat.
Another investigator testified yesterday that Graner led the abuse.
Special Agent Tyler Pieron said Spc. Joseph Darby, the member of England’s unit who turned over the computer disk, indicated “that Cpl. Graner was the ringleader in the abuse. ...When he wasn’t there, it didn’t happen as much.”
Darby blew the whistle because, “He was, quite frankly, very afraid for the detainees’ lives,” Pieron testified by telephone from Fort Jackson, S.C.
Iem said that during his investigation, he learned American guards had handcuffed a detainee to bars that were so high that the prisoner’s feet barely touched the ground.
In another case, a military police officer put a pistol to the head of a detainee brought to the prison after being wounded in battle and said, “I wish I could kill you,” Iem testified.
A smiling England pointing and giving the thumbs-up to naked Iraqi detainees in dozens of images stirred outrage in the Arab world and dismay at home. In one of the most widely circulated shots, she is holding a cringing, naked prisoner by a leash.
The Article 32 hearing will determine whether a court-martial goes forward against England on 13 counts of abusing detainees and six counts stemming from possession of sexually explicit photos. The maximum possible sentence is 38 years in prison.
Wednesday, a military intelligence officer disputed England’s claim that she posed in the photos under orders from military intelligence officers who planned to use the photos to “loosen up” Iraqi detainees for interrogation.
Testifying by phone from Iraq, Chief Warrant Officer Edward Rivas, who was in charge of assessing the intelligence value of detainees at Abu Ghraib, said those were not techniques used by interrogators at the prison and anyone who tried them was doing so on their own.
England sat stone-faced at the defense table Wednesday and munched potato chips during a break. Seven months pregnant, she supported her lower back with a blue pillow and wore a maternity version of the Army’s green camouflage uniform. Her mother, Terrie, sat in a spectator seat behind her.
She is one of seven reservists from the unit who have been charged in the case. Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits, 24, was sentenced to a year in prison after being convicted of mistreating prisoners and dereliction of duty.
