FORT HOOD, Texas, Jan 15 (AFP) - US soldier Charles Graner was expected to plead for leniency Saturday, one day after a military jury convicted him of beating and sexually abusing inmates at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
Graner, 36, the suspected ringleader of the notorious abuses at the US-run Iraqi prison, could face up to 15 years behind bars for assaulting prisoners, forcing them to masturbate and piling them naked on top of one another.
The military policeman said he would take the stand on Saturday for the first time in his week-old court martial at the Fort Hood US Army base in Texas.
"I'll start off by saying 'I swear to God,' ... and then you'll hear a story," he told journalists late Friday as he emerged from the courtroom after his conviction, giving a thumbs-up sign.
After the 10-man jury delivered its verdict, Graner's parents issued an emotional plea for leniency, with the soldier's mother saying her son "is not the monster he is made out to be."
In military trials, witnesses may appear after the verdict is delivered but before sentencing. Both sides can then argue their case for a certain sentence before the jury holds its final deliberations.
Several witnesses called by the defense portrayed Graner as a law-abiding professional, both as a soldier and, before that, as a civilian prison guard in the United States.
His mother, Irma, her voice shaking with emotion, described him as a gentle, caring man who loved his children and respected his parents.
But the prosecution described Graner as a depraved thug who beat and humiliated prisoners for sport. One witness called him the main torturer at Abu Ghraib.
Graner will be the fifth soldier sentenced in the Abu Ghraib scandal that stirred worldwide outrage and tarnished the reputation of the US military in Iraq.
Three others are awaiting trial for their role in abuses that were documented in now notorious photographs the soldiers themselves took at the prison in late 2003.
Graner appears in several of the pictures, grinning as he looks at a stack of naked detainees, or raising his fist as though to strike handcuffed and hooded prisoners lying on the ground.
Defense attorney Guy Womack defended what he called the "cheerleader pyramid" and another incident in which prisoners were made to masturbate and simulate oral sex. Womack said those were simply creative techniques to control prisoners and prepare them for interrogation.
Graner based his defense on the argument that he was acting under orders to soften up prisoners for interrogations that could provide valuable information about the anti-US insurgency in Iraq.
Womack insists his client is being made a scapegoat, and has said the senior officers who issued the orders are those who should be put on trial.
No officer has been charged in the case, and the defense failed to get any to the witness stand.
Human rights groups have called for a more wide-ranging probe to determine the role of higher-ups in the Abu Ghraib scandal.
"The most senior officials should be subject to the laws of the land," said Kenneth Roth, director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch.
He made the comments earlier in the week, when HRW released its annual report, which called the scandal one of the most flagrant examples of human rights violations in recent history.
Roth said a special investigator should be named to probe the case, and that prosecution should not be limited to "a handful of privates and sergeants."
01/15/2005 15:26 GMT - AFP