Judge rejects attempts to have prison abuse photos quashed

A military judge rejected on Monday a request to exclude potentially incriminating photographs from the court martial of a soldier suspected of being the ringleader in the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.

A military judge rejected on Monday a request to exclude potentially incriminating photographs from the court martial of a soldier suspected of being the ringleader in the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.

HT Image

The judge leading the pre-trial hearing in Mannheim, western Germany, James Pohl, also denied efforts by lawyers for Corporal Charles Graner to have his future court martial moved to the United States.

But he threatened to have the case against Graner suspended if military police investigators did not move quickly to sort out hundreds of thousands of files stored on a secret military computer that the defence needs as evidence.

"I will reconsider whether this case should be dismissed," said Pohl, if he was not happy with progress made by the investigators by October 21.

Graner is charged with cruelty and maltreatment, assault, conspiracy and dereliction of duty over the abuses at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad which were captured on film by some of the seven people accused so far.

The photographs, released by the media in April, caused outrage around the world and came as a further blow to US reputation in the Middle East.

The prisoners were photographed naked, in itself deeply humiliating and even more so for Muslims, and being forced to perform sexual acts, piled in a pyramid, cowering from dogs or with electrodes attached to them.

An investigator told the judge that Graner had given a CD to a colleague containing dozens of photographs of Iraqi prisoners being abused.

Defence lawyers Jay Heath and Guy Womack argued that it would be impossible for Graner to get a fair trial in Baghdad because of the unfair influence the photographs had on all who had seen them.

"This is the functional equivalent of a confession, almost," said Heath, a military captain. "There are some suggestions that his actions have caused the deaths of other Americans."

But Pohl argued that it would be difficult for Graner, whose face was seen worldwide smiling, arms folded behind a mound of hooded, naked Iraqi prisoners, to find a panel of judges anywhere who had not heard of the case.

When questioned, the 35-year-old military policeman, told of how he had been living on three to four hours of sleep a night was under extreme stress when questioned by investigators in the early hours of January 14, 2004.

"Several of our platoon had taken fire ... both of my roommates had been injured in an IED (home-made bomb) blast," he said. "Many times we went out without armour, a few times we went out without doors" on the vehicles.

"It was one of the more stressful times," he said.

The court heard that Graner, who was dressed in desert fatigues and is the first of four soldiers involved in the two-day hearing, was of above average intelligence and had himself been trained in search and seizure procedures.

"It is simply inconceivable that the accused was not acting in a voluntary manner in this case," said Major Michael Holly, essentially a military prosecutor representing the US government.

Later, outside the court, Womack played down the judge's rulings.

"We don't really see this as a set back," he told reporters, "Our defence has always been that the actions at Abu Ghraib were lawful," that they were ordered from above.

The hearing, known as an Article 39a session, is a one-off procedure, and was moved to Germany after lawyers voiced fears for witness safety.

Graner and Sergeant Javal Davis, who is facing similar charges, have both submitted a motion for the location of the trial to be changed.

Specialist Megan Ambuhl was also appeared on Monday, with Davis and the last of the four, Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick being heard on Tuesday.

The scandal has seen blame pushed from the guards up the military ranks and embarrassed US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whom Davis wants interviewed for his trial, but has yet to claim the job of any high-ranking official.