Abu Ghraib guard's lover 'mocked' prisoners

FORT HOOD, Texas - A former US military policewoman has testified that an intelligence officer at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison asked her to mock the genitals of naked detainees, supporting defence contentions that guards were following military intelligence orders.

In the strongest defence testimony so far, Megan Ambuhl told the court-martial of Spc. Charles Graner, portrayed as the leader in the 2003 prisoner abuse scandal, that interrogators would tell the guards what to do with detainees.

The defence had said Graner, 36, would testify but unexpectedly rested their case on Thursday afternoon. "I feel fantastic," Graner told reporters. "I am still smiling."

The 10-man military jury will begin deliberations on Friday in the case that could land Graner in prison for up to 17 1/2 years. Graner spent most of last year in Iraq with the others accused in the scandal and in recent months has been confined to Fort Hood, a large base in central Texas.

Seven US military police and one intelligence officer were charged in the case in which detainees were photographed naked in sexually humiliating positions. Four Americans have pleaded guilty; Graner's case is the first to go to trial.

Ambuhl, who worked with Graner at the prison and admitted under cross-examination for the first time in public to having a sexual relationship with him, pleaded guilty last year to one count of dereliction of duty and was spared prison time.

"They would come down with their detainees and let us know what they wanted us to do with them," Ambuhl said, referring to military interrogators. "They might say this guy is cooperating, not cooperating."

In one instance, she said an intelligence interrogator asked her to watch a male detainee shower. "They wanted me to go in the shower and point at the genital area and laugh at them," she said.

Another time, a civilian interrogator ordered her to deal with a detainee called "al Qaeda" because he was a suspected member of the network, said Ambuhl, who was present when a naked Iraqi prisoner was leashed and photographed.

The interrogator "told us we were doing a good job and that breaking al Qaeda (the prisoner) would have a global impact and save a lot of lives," she said.

CONFUSED COMMAND STRUCTURE

Ambuhl, testifying on the fifth day of the trial, said she had heard two military intelligence officers ask Graner and Pvt. Ivan Frederick, who is serving an eight-year sentence in the case, to rough up a detainee.

Witnesses have described a confused command structure at Abu Ghraib in which military police ran the prison, interacting with civilian and military interrogators and other US intelligence agencies.

Graner's lawyers argue he was acting at the behest of these interrogators. The abuse of Iraqi prisoners included repeated beatings, stacking seven common criminals into a naked human pyramid, and putting a leash around the neck of a mentally disturbed man.

A second witness from Graner's unit said he saw military intelligence officials bind together three naked Iraqis accused of raping an Iraqi boy. Kenneth Davis said Graner assisted three military intelligence officers, even though he outranked them, and followed their request to shout at one man to undress.

"It was enough to scare me; Graner has a drill instructor's voice," Davis said. "It appeared that MI was calling the shots that night and Graner was following suit."

In questioning, prosecutors highlighted that the rapists were not intelligence targets.

The court viewed photos of the three bound prisoners from that October 2003 night taken by Pfc. Lynndie England, a clerk with whom Graner later fathered a child and who also is facing a court-martial later this year.

The photos of England holding a naked prisoner on a leash shocked the world and turned the abuse scandal into a major US foreign policy setback

- REUTERS