BAGHDAD, Oct 20 (AFP) - US Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick was sentenced to eight years in prison and expelled from the army for his role in abusing inmates at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib jail, as the hearing of another US soldier charged with murdering an Iraqi opened.
Away from the spotlight of the prison abuse scandal, Staff Sergeant Cardenas Alban stood in a courtroom in Iraq's capital accused of premeditated murder and conspiracy to murder.
Alban and fellow staff sergeant Johnny Horne, who is due to appear before a judge at a later date, are charged with shooting dead a wounded Iraqi in Baghdad's Shiite slum of Sadr City whom they say was so badly injured he would have died anyway.
If convicted the soldiers, both attached to the Baghdad-based First Cavalry Division, face a minimum of life in prison or a maximum of the death sentence. A third soldier, the pair's superior officer, might still be charged.
As the military weighed Alban's case, the latest verdict in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was handed down, with a military judge punishing Frederick with eight years in prison and a dishonourable discharge for beating and sexually humiliating Iraqi detainees.
Frederick, the highest-ranking official to be tried so far in the prison abuse case, had pleaded guilty to a range of five charges from making hooded inmates masturbate to punching them in the chest.
Judge Colonel James Pohl also demoted the 38-year-old before the discharge and docked his pay, although an original sentence of 10 years was reduced due to a plea bargain.
Frederick was the first of three military police due to be court martialled in Baghdad this week for their alleged part in abuse at Abu Ghraib.
The scandal came to light when pictures showing grinning US soldiers posing by a heap of naked Iraqi men and other abuses at the prison sparked worldwide outrage earlier this year.
His two-day trial painted a bleak picture of the disorder and abuse at the prison, with Frederick and other witnesses alleging that they were acting under the authority of others further up the US chain of command.
The reservist's lawyer argued that it was the collective fault of the military for creating the conditions that allowed the abuse to take place and for failing to train Frederick properly.
"Punish him yes. But please try to understand the defence's point of view that there is corporate responsibility," he said in court. "We discovered that he has no abhorrent tendencies."
The army prosecutor argued that it was a simple case of right and wrong.
"He's an adult capable of making decisions," said Major Michael Holley. "How much training do you need to learn that it's wrong to force a man to masturbate?"
During the trial, witnesses' painted a picture of a prison where higher authorities looked the other way if it resulted in good intelligence.
Donald J. Reese, commander of the 372nd Military Police, testifying Wednesday from the United States via videoconference, said CIA operatives used the cover of night to interrogate 25 Iraqi "ghost detainees", who were not listed on prison rolls and kept away from international monitors.
The hearings saw another US officer contend that military police at the prison were asked to obtain intelligence no matter what the price.
Chief Warrant Officer Kevin Kramer, a member of the Army's 519th Military Intelligence Company at Fort Bragg, North Carolina told the court he was expected to obtain intelligence, even if it meant violating the Geneva Conventions.
He said he received an e-mail in August 2003 from a US captain in the coalition headquarters which urged him on.
Kramer read the e-mail to the court.
"The gloves are coming off, gentlemen, regarding these detainees. Colonel Boltz wants the detainees broken."
More revelations are expected to follow as Sergeant Javal Davis and Specialist Charles Graner are to be hauled into the dock Thursday and Friday.
So far seven prison guards have been charged in the scandal. Along with Frederick, Specialist James Sivits pleaded guilty in May and was sentenced to a year in prison.
One military intelligence officer, Specialist Armin Cruz, has been charged so far and was sentenced last month to eight months in prison.
But those expected to pay the price for Abu Ghraib is only expected grow. Forty-five people have been referred for court martials, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in September.
A report, commissioned by the Pentagon and released in August faulted top commanders in Baghdad, elsewhere in the Middle East and in the Defence Department for failing to lay down clear guidelines for the treatment of prisoners.
10/21/2004 16:49 GMT - AFP