2 Marines Guilty of Abusing Prisoner

Two 19-year-old Marines pleaded guilty last month to abusing an Iraqi prisoner under their watch by giving him electric shocks, according to Marine officials.

The guilty pleas were made at two courts-martial that were held May 14 at a Marine base in western Iraq. They occurred as the military continues to conduct a series of investigations at military-run prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan after disclosures about the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the sprawling Army-run prison that houses about 3,000 Iraqi security detainees.

The two Marines pleaded guilty to taking part in the abuse of a prisoner in early April at a temporary holding facility near Mahmudiyah, Iraq, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, according to a statement by the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. The courts-martial were held without publicity at Camp Fallujah, about 35 miles west of Baghdad.

Pfc. Andrew J. Sting of Bradner, Ohio, pleaded guilty to charges of assault, cruelty and maltreatment, dereliction of duty, and conspiracy to commit assault. He was sentenced to one year in confinement.

Pfc. Jeremiah J. Trefney of Lebanon, Pa., pleaded guilty to cruelty and maltreatment, dereliction of duty, making a false official statement, violating a lawful order, and conspiracy to commit assault. He received eight months in confinement.

Both were sentenced to demotion to private, forfeiture of pay and a bad-conduct discharge. They were infantrymen with the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C. Their unit is attached to the 1st Marine Division, based at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

According to the statement, the Marines wanted to discipline the Iraqi prisoner because he had been speaking loudly and throwing garbage outside his cell in violation of rules. "In an effort to change the detainee's behavior," the statement said, the Marines attached wires to a power converter, which delivered 110 volts of electricity, and pressed the live wires against the body of the detainee as he returned to his cell from a bathroom.

Three other Marines from the same unit were investigated for the same incident. After an Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding, on May 12, an investigating officer recommended that two of them be court-martialed. It is not clear whether the third Marine was cleared or given an administrative punishment.

"There are no additional investigations or proceedings underway at this time," the Marine statement said.

A civilian lawyer for Sting's family said Marine officials in Iraq rushed a criminal prosecution only after the Abu Ghraib scandal became public.

The lawyer, Thomas A. Sobecki, said in a telephone interview that Sting was given an informal verbal reprimand by his supervising officer after the incident occurred. Four weeks later, after leaked images of the Abu Ghraib abuses were broadcast around the world, the Marines informed Sting that he would face criminal charges.

"The Marines caved in to public pressure," Sobecki said.

Sobecki said that Sting was given a direct order by a sergeant to punish the detainee and that Sting obeyed after consulting two other Marines. "After he was given the directive by the sergeant, it didn't sound right to him," Sobecki said. "He went back to the sergeant and to another sergeant and a corporal in his chain of command and questioned the order. They said, 'Yes, absolutely.' "

Sobecki also said Sting was provided a military lawyer, who advised him to waive his right to an Article 32 hearing and to plead guilty. "He didn't have the opportunity to request civilian counsel," Sobecki said.

A woman who answered the phone at Trefney's mother's home identified herself as his grandmother and declined to comment.

The Marines did not have an immediate response to Sobecki's assertions. A Marine spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Thomas V. Johnson, said in an e-mail that he would have to forward questions about the case to military lawyers for a response.

Some details of the guilty pleas were first reported by the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Marine Corps Times last month. The sole Marine statement about the cases was released May 20 -- six days after the courts-martial -- in response to a general list of questions from the Union-Tribune about Marine-run detention facilities, according to Johnson and a copy of the statement.

Researcher Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.