Lynndie's defence seeks to call top US general
The lawyer for Lynndie England, the US soldier pictured in humiliating photos of Iraqi detainees, asked a judge today if he could call as a witness in her hearing the top US commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez.
As the military hearing for England entered its fourth day, defence lawyer Rick Hernandez also asked the judge if he could call Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who ran Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison where the photos were taken.
The judge, Colonel Denise Arn, was noncommittal and said it would be handled later.
Arn is holding the hearing at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, to decide whether England, a reservist, should be court-martialled on 13 counts of abusing detainees and six counts stemming from possession of sexually explicit photos.
If convicted, the pregnant 21-year-old could get up to 38 years in prison.
Prosecutors said they expected to complete presentation of evidence today. Court officials made preparations to hear testimony Saturday if necessary.
An army intelligence analyst testified he was disgusted by the sight of guards forcing prisoners to crawl naked across a floor but chose not to tell his superiors about the abuse.
After a few minutes of watching the prisoners crawl on their stomachs “low enough that their genitalia were rubbing on the floor, causing pain,” Specialist Israel Rivera said that he said to another intelligence agent “that I had seen enough.”
The analyst testified that the friend who showed him the abuse asked him to keep it a secret. Rivera, however, told another friend, who reported it anonymously to military police.
Rivera’s boss, Captain Carolyn Wood, was the army’s chief intelligence officer at the prison. She also gave evidence, saying abuse – such as that shown in the now-infamous photos of England posing prisoners in sexual positions and tethering one on a leash – was not approved.
Wood said she was not aware such abuse was going on and was shocked when photos of guards mistreating prisoners surfaced.
She said interrogators under her command asked several times a week to deviate from standard procedures at the prison, but not by doing the kind of things shown in the photos that included England, one of which showed naked Iraqi detainees piled in a pyramid.
