Soldier Gets 1 Year In Abuse of Iraqis

Photographs of abuse at the prison have prompted at least five military investigations and congressional probes of the U.S. military's prison and military intelligence operations. Officials have promised to determine how high up the chain of command people were aware of the behavior.

The uproar has created new tensions for U.S. occupation officials preparing to return limited authority to Iraqis at the end of next month.

Outside the courtroom at the Baghdad Convention Center, about 150 people marched up traffic-clogged Shawaf Street at 11 a.m. toward the complex where the court-martial was in session. Shopkeepers and tea vendors watched as the crowd, led by drummers and a horn player, passed waving a series of banners.

"A Public Trial Against Those Who Committed Crimes Against Detainees Is a Just Demand for All Iraqis," read one. Another said: "We Reject Mass Arrests."

Aloft at the head of the column bobbed the now famous picture of Pfc. Lynndie R. England, an Iraqi prisoner at her feet attached to a dog leash in her hand. Under the close watch of U.S. soldiers on rooftops and checkpoints, the protesters demonstrated peacefully in an intersection at the entrance to the convention center for nearly an hour.

"We have to protest against the terrorist ways the Americans use against the prisoners," said Abdul Razzaq Helfi, a poet and member of the Nasserite Socialist Party. "We'll demonstrate until the torture and oppression in the prisons ends."

Bakhtiar Amin, Iraq's new human rights minister, attended Sivits's court-martial with the new president of the Iraqi Governing Council, Ghazi Yawar, Interior Minister Samir Shakir Mahmoud Sumaidy and Dara Noureddine, a prominent Iraqi judge and council member.

Amin said he was pleased that the court-martial was public. "This is a very good sign," he said. "This is an awful crime, and I condemn it firmly. All we asked is these are tried in a fair manner, that the victims . . . are seen as if they were American citizens."

The three other soldiers arraigned Wednesday were Spec. Charles A. Graner Jr., Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick and Sgt. Javal S. Davis. They appeared in court one after the other but declined through their military attorneys to enter pleas. Pohl set pre-trial hearings on June 21 for all three.

England and Specs. Sabrina D. Harman and Megan M. Ambuhl have been charged but have not been referred to a court-martial. Sivits's account alleges wrongdoing by the other defendants except for Ambuhl.

Sivits testified Wednesday that the 372nd had been assigned to Abu Ghraib for about a month when the abuse took place, but up until that time he had had no contact with the prisoners because he was not a guard.

On the night of Nov. 8, he said, the guards were processing seven detainees who had been sent from another part of the prison for allegedly taking part in a riot.

He said he was relaxing in the common area when Frederick asked him to follow him to the prison so they could continue a conversation. It was then that Frederick asked whether he would like to escort one of the detainees to another tier, and he said yes.

As he led the hooded but still clothed detainee by the arm, Sivits said, he rounded a corner and saw a pile of prisoners on the floor. He said England and Davis were stomping on the prisoners' feet and hands.