By DPA
Fort Meade (Maryland) : The US officer who headed the interrogation centre at Abu Ghraib prison has been acquitted of charges related to the abuse of Iraqi detainees, but found guilty of disobeying orders during a probe into the scandal.
The military jury’s verdict Tuesday what is likely to be the last Abu Ghraib court-martial leaves only 11 lower-ranking US soldiers criminally responsible for abuses at the prison outside Baghdad in the fall of 2003.
Army Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, the only US officer charged in the scandal, was found guilty of ignoring an order not to discuss a 2004 investigation into the scandal with other soldiers. He was acquitted of cruelty and mistreatment, dereliction of duty and another count of disobeying orders.
A reservist who volunteered for Iraq, Jordan, 51, faced up to five years in prison as the jury retreated for sentencing.
Yet prosecutors only asked for a fine of one month’s pay and a reprimand, leaving open whether Jordan should go behind bars. The defence urged the panel not to impose any punishment.
Earlier, Jordan repeatedly paused to fight back tears as he told the jury he accepted the verdict, hoped the wounds caused by Abu Ghraib could begin to heal and expressed regret to his family for putting them through an ordeal.
“When I first saw the photographs of the horrible abuses at Abu Ghraib prison I was shocked and I was sad,” he said. “It did not represent the United States Army I know and love.”
“After today, I hope the wounds of Abu Ghraib can begin to heal,” he said, reading from prepared remarks.
Jordan was director of Abu Ghraib’s interrogation centre in the fall of 2003 when military police on night duty took infamous pictures of naked detainees being mistreated, sexually humiliated and threatened with dogs.
Photos of the abuses became public in 2004, inflaming anti-Americanism in the Middle East, causing worldwide outrage and damaging US credibility.
In the end, he was convicted on a charge stemming from the scandal’s aftermath: The jury concluded that he disobeyed a general’s order in 2004 not to communicate with other soldiers about an investigation into the scandal.
Court evidence indicated that he e-mailed several troops he knew from Abu Ghraib, asking whether they believed he was connected to any abuses.
The prosecution failed to make its case – already cut back to four counts from an original 10 – that responsibility for Abu Ghraib extended higher up the US command chain than previously established.
Prosecutors alleged that Jordan failed as a leader and created a climate at Abu Ghraib that encouraged abuses by other soldiers.
He also was charged with failing to step in during a Nov 2003 incident, when soldiers allegedly broke interrogation rules and stripped Iraqi detainees and used dogs to control them.
The defence argued that Jordan effectively had no authority over the military intelligence soldiers and military police who controlled interrogations.
Instead, Jordan took charge by improving living conditions for the troops – everything from clean latrines to an Internet cafe – and moving them to safety from mortar and sniper attacks by Iraqi insurgents, his lawyers told the court.
How much authority Jordan had – or wanted to have – at the sprawling prison remained unclear.
A colonel who recommended him for the job said Jordan’s role included ensuring that interrogations were done in a “lawful” way. But others suggested that the military police officers and interrogation experts felt responsible to their unit commanders.
Jordan stood silently as the head of the 10-member jury, Brigadier General Louis Weber, read the verdict in a courtroom at a military base north of Washington. Weber did not explain the ruling, reached after some seven hours of deliberation over two days.