Reservist found guilty in Abu Ghraib abuse
Faces up to 9 years on six of seven charges
FORT HOOD, Texas -- A court-martial found US reservist Lynndie England guilty yesterday of abusing prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in a scandal that caused international outrage.
The former chicken-factory worker now faces a prison term of up to nine years, for convictions on six of seven abuse-related charges. England, 22, showed no visible reaction as she stood at attention to hear the jury's verdict.
In photographs published around the world, England, a young female Army reservist, was shown holding a naked Iraqi prisoner by a leash and pointing to an inmate's genitals.
A military prosecutor said England humiliated prisoners because she enjoyed it and had a sick sense of humor, but her lawyers said she took part in the humiliation because of an overly compliant personality.
In his closing arguments, Captain Chris Graveline showed poster-sized enlargements of photographs showing a smiling England mocking nude Iraqi prisoners.
''What soldier wouldn't know that that's illegal?" he asked.
England was also shown in posters holding a naked prisoner on a leash. In a January 2003 statement to investigators, she had said the poses were a joke.
''She knew what she did was wrong that night," Graveline said. ''The problem is, it's not a joke. It's a crime. She's guilty as charged."
''She is participating all for her own sick humor."
The lead defense lawyer, Captain Jonathan Crisp, had urged the jury to acquit England, saying she was following orders and that learning difficulties, depression, and abuse as a child had left her overly compliant to authority. Crisp said her prime authority figure was Charles Graner, the convicted abuse ringleader and the father of her 11-month-old child.
''The entire case, what this has always been about, is authority," Crisp said. Private First Class ''England's blind compliance toward authority and her lack of authority in any context."
''She's a follower. She was an individual who was smitten with Corporal Graner, who just did whatever he asked her to do," he continued. ''Compounding all this is her depression, her anxiety, her fear."
Graveline mocked the defense argument that England was incapable of independent decision-making, pointing out that she quit a job in a chicken factory when management did not address her concerns about quality control.
England's case was the latest in a series of prosecutions or plea bargains of low-level soldiers who served at Abu Ghraib. The military has also reprimanded some higher-ranking officers, and allegations have surfaced of hundreds of other cases of detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The jury will begin to hear evidence today as they decide on sentencing.
Defense lawyers want to hear from one of the soldiers quoted in a Human Rights Watch report on Friday that said Iraqi inmates near Fallujah were beaten with a baseball bat, stacked clothed in pyramids, deprived of food and water, and put in painful positions until they fainted. The judge appeared skeptical about allowing the testimony as he wondered what link it had to crimes at Abu Ghraib. 