Agence France-Presse,
FORT MEADE, United States: The only US officer tried over the abuse scandal at Baghdad's infamous Abu Ghraib jail was cleared Tuesday of mistreating prisoners there, but found guilty of disobedience in its wake.
Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, 51, is the only US officer charged in the abuse scandal which emerged in 2004 when photographs of naked Iraqi prisoners being tormented by grinning US troops circulated around the world.
Jordan now faces sentencing for disobeying an order not to discuss the scandal with other people, when he sent two emails about it to a colleague in spring 2004.
The offense carries a possible five-year jail term, but prosecutors at the court martial at the Fort Meade military base near Washington did not call for this to be applied. Jordan's lawyers asked for him to be spared any punishment.
He was acquitted meanwhile on three other charges of mistreating prisoners, including allegations he had stripped them and threatened them with attack dogs, and dereliction of duty.
Jordan, an army reservist, had pleaded not guilty to all four charges, with defense lawyers arguing that he had not been present when the abuses occurred and had no direct authority over the interrogations which happened at the jail.
The prosecution had sought to argue that Jordan, who was in charge of the interrogation unit, had fostered the atmosphere allowing such abuses to happen.
“This case is not about what Lieutenant Colonel Jordan did in Abu Ghraib. It's about what he divorced himself from doing,” said prosecutor Colonel John Tracy during the hearing.
But defense lawyer Major Kris Poppe painted a different picture of an honorable officer who had nothing to do with the abuses.
“The images of Abu Ghraib run in our memory. They were criminal acts, committed by a small number of soldiers in the middle of the night, behind closed doors,” Poppe said.
“It is tempting to say that some officer must be held responsible. But not this officer,” said his lawyer, adding: “You cannot stop somebody from doing something criminal if you're not there and you don't know about it.”
Jordan, who oversaw the Abu Ghraib interrogations center from September to December 2003, did not have direct authority over the interrogations or the military police carrying them out, his lawyers said.
Instead, after arriving in Baghdad in September 2003, shortly after the March invasion to topple former dictator Saddam Hussein, he was appalled by the conditions at the jail, and had sought to improve them, they said.
Critics have argued that others higher up the military chain of command should have been brought to justice for the abuse. But only 11 other soldiers have been convicted in the scandal.
Among the higher ranks, former general Janis Karpinski, prison commander in Iraq at the time of the scandal, was sanctioned with a demotion, but was never put on trial.
After shedding her uniform, Karpinsky said in a book published in late 2005 that the Abu Ghraib abuses “were the result of conflicting orders and confused standards extending from the military commanders in Iraq all the way to the summit of civilian leadership in Washington.”
The jury deliberated for an hour on the sentence before suspending its sitting until Wednesday morning.
“I accept and I respect your decision,” a visibly moved Jordan told the court in a statement following the conviction. “I know upon receiving an order (…) it's my job to get it done.”
“When I first saw the photographs (…) I was shocked and I was sad. It did not represent the United States soldiers I know and love”
