Prisoner abuse soldiers kicked out of US Army
The US Army has discharged three soldiers for abusing prisoners at a detention centre in Iraq last May, a US military spokesman said.
The three soldiers, all from Pennsylvania, were scheduled to face courts martial this month, but opted to submit instead to a nonjudicial hearing, in which their conduct was judged by a commander without any jury, Lt Col Vic Harris said in Kuwait.
Brigadier General Ennis Whitehead, the acting commander of the 143d Transportation Command, found the three soldiers had maltreated prisoners at Camp Bucca, southern Iraq, on May 12.
He demoted two of the soldiers and ordered that all three forfeit their salaries for two months.
The general found that Master Sgt Lisa Marie Girman, 35, of Hazelton, Pennsylvania, had knocked a prisoner to the ground, “repeatedly kicking him in the groin, abdomen, and head, and encouraging her subordinate soldiers to do the same,” Harris said.
Girman subsequently received an “other-than-honourable conditions” discharge from her immediate commander.
Staff Sgt Scott McKenzie, 38, of Clearfield, Pennsylvania, was found to have dragged a prisoner by his shoulders and then to have held his legs apart “and encouraging others to kick him in the groin while other US soldiers kicked him in the abdomen and head,” Harris said.
McKenzie was also found to have thrown the detainee face-down to the ground and have stepped on “his previously injured arm”.
McKenzie was demoted to sergeant and later received a “general, under honourable conditions” discharge.
Spc Timothy Canjar, 21, of Moscow, Pennsylvania, was found to have made a false statement to the army’s criminal investigators and to have held a detainee’s legs apart “while others kicked him in the groin,” in addition to “violently twisting his previously injured arm and causing him to scream in pain”.
The findings were handed down at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. The three soldiers have now returned to the United States.
