Abu Ghraib 'Ringleader' Convicted of Prisoner Abuse
Fort Hood jury finds Graner guilty in Abu Ghraib abuse case
FORT HOOD -- Spc. Charles Graner Jr., the reputed ringleader of a band of rogue guards at Abu Ghraib, was found guilty today of abusing detainees in the first trial arising from the scandal at the Baghdad prison.
Graner, a 36-year-old reservist from Uniontown, Pa., was convicted on all of the counts he faced: conspiracy, assault, maltreating prisoners, dereliction of duty and committing indecent acts.
The jury of four Army officers and six senior enlisted men rejected the defense that Graner and other guards were merely following orders from intelligence agents at Abu Ghraib when they roughed up and sexually humiliated the detainees.
The jury deliberated for less than five hours. Each count required that at least seven of the 10 jurors to agree for conviction.
Graner stood at attention and looked straight ahead without expression as each of the verdicts was read by the foreman. His parents Charles and Irma Graner, who attended each day of the trial, held hands tightly as they listened.
The case next goes to the sentencing phase, which jurors said they wanted to begin this evening.
Both prosecutors and the defense are permitted to put on witnesses during a sentencing hearing. Graner can also testify, which he declined to do during the trial.
The jury accepted the prosecution's case with a few minor exceptions.
On one of the two aggravated assault counts he faced, he was found guilty of a lesser charge of battery. In addition, he was acquitted on eight of 25 instances of dereliction but, under military law, he was still convicted on the charge as a whole.
Graner, once a guard at a maximum-security prison in his home state, had faced up to 17 1/2 years behind bars, but the assault reduction lowered that ceiling to 15 years.
In his closing argument, Capt. Chris Graveline, one of the prosecutors, recounted incident after incident of abuse, buttressing many with photos and video taken inside the prison in November 2003, to make the case that Graner was a sadistic soldier who took pleasure in seeing detainees suffer.
"It was for sport, for laughs," Graveline said. "What we have here is plain abuse. There is no justification."
Defense lawyer Guy Womack countered that his client and other Abu Ghraib guards were under extreme pressure from intelligence agents to use physical violence to prepare detainees for questioning.
"It was a persistent, consistent set of orders," Womack said. "To soften up the detainees, to do things so we can interrogate them successfully in support of our mission. ... We had men and women being killed."
Womack reminded jurors that Saddam Hussein was not yet in U.S. custody when the alleged abuse happened.
"There was somebody very important on everybody's mind," he said. "Wouldn't it be logical to have your interrogators use pressure to get information to try to find him?"
Womack described the notorious photos taken inside the prison as "gallows humor" arising from unrelenting stress felt by the Abu Ghraib guards.
He also tried to plant the seed that Graner and the other low-level guards were being used in a cover-up to protect Army officers once those photos went public.
Graner stood accused of stacking naked detainees in a human pyramid and later ordering them to masturbate while other soldiers took photographs. He also punched one man in the head hard enough to knock him out, and struck an injured prisoner with a collapsible metal stick.
Three Abu Ghraib guards who had made plea deals with prosecutors testified at the trial. Two other guards are awaiting trial, along with Pfc. Lynndie England, a clerk at Abu Ghraib who last fall gave birth to a baby believed to be fathered by Graner.
Womack said Thursday that there was no need for Graner to tell his version of what went on inside the prison because his other witnesses were so effective in making the case.
Graveline used some of Graner's own e-mails as evidence of how much he enjoyed the pain he inflicted on detainees. In one e-mail, he described beating on prisoners as "a good upper-body workout, but hard on the hands."
The e-mail messages were given to jurors Tuesday. The New York Times, which said it got them from a person close to the defense, reported that they were sent to Graner's family and friends, including his young children.
"The guys give me hell for not getting any pictures while I was fighting this guy," said the message with the photograph of the howling detainee, according to the Times.
A photo of him stitching a detainee's wound had the note, "Things may have gotten a bit bad when we were asking him a couple of questions. O well," the Times reported.
In his presentation, Graveline cited an earlier comment by Womack, who sought to play down the pyramid incident by saying that cheerleaders build pyramids every day.
The prosecution said that might be a valid comparison if the cheerleaders were stripped naked and roughed up first.
But Womack said there was nothing wrong with stripping what the prisoners, whom he termed "hardened terrorists," and stacking them into a pyramid to control them.
"They did it in a safe manner so nobody would get hurt ... It was an ingenious move," he said. "If there was anything wrong, it was that they took a picture and they were smiling."
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/
ssistory.mpl/topstory/2991852
Posted by Editor at January 14, 2005 07:15 PM
