By DPA
Fort Meade (Maryland) : A US Army officer who headed the interrogation centre at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq escaped prison time Wednesday when a military jury issued only a reprimand at the end of his court-martial.
Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Jordan, 51, was the only officer to stand trial for the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. However, he was convicted only of a technical charge of disobeying orders and acquitted of all charges related to the abuses at the prison.
In its verdict on Tuesday, the military court had found Jordan guilty of ignoring a general’s order not to communicate with other soldiers about an investigation in 2004, when photos taken by US soldiers at the prison became public and touched off the scandal.
Jordan was the most senior soldier to face justice over the scandal that shocked the world in 2004 and caused lasting damage to US credibility.
Although he could have faced up to five years in prison and dismissal from the Army, prosecutors had recommended a reprimand and a fine of one month’s pay, $7,373.
The case was likely to be the last Abu Ghraib court-martial. Previously 11 lower-ranking US soldiers have been convicted for abuses at the prison outside Baghdad in the fall of 2003. One of them received a 10-year prison term.
A reservist who volunteered for Iraq, Jordan made a tearful plea to the court Tuesday before the jury began deliberations. His lawyers urged the 10 panel members to consider Jordan’s long military service and the wounds he suffered in Iraq.
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.
He was not specifically charged over those abuses, but with failing to ensure discipline at the prison.