Panel convicts reservist in prison abuse

FORT HOOD, Texas -- A military jury yesterday convicted Specialist Sabrina Harman on all but one of the seven charges she faced for her role in abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison.

A panel of four Army officers and four senior enlisted soldiers convicted Harman, 27, on one count of conspiracy to maltreat detainees, four counts of maltreating detainees, and one count of dereliction of duty.

The reservist from Lorton, Va., was acquitted on one maltreatment count. Her sentencing hearing was scheduled to begin today. Harman faces a maximum of 5Æ years in a military prison.

Harman, a former pizza shop manager from Virginia, was the second soldier to be tried for allegedly mistreating prisoners at Abu Ghraib. She was depicted in several of the most notorious photos taken at Abu Ghraib in late October and early November 2003, and she is accused of taking other pictures. Harman posed for a photo with Private Charles Graner Jr. behind a group of naked detainees stacked in a pyramid. In another photo, the reservist is shown with a prisoner on whose leg she is accused of writing ''rapeist."

Earlier yesterday, prosecutors said in closing arguments that Harman and other guards on the night shift at Abu Ghraib conspired to mistreat the prisoners.

''They were all acting together for their own amusement," said Captain Chris Graveline. ''There was no justification for what they did that night."