Reservist Pleads Guilty in First Prison Abuse Court-Martial

Choking back tears and expressing remorse, U.S. Army Spc. Jeremy Sivits pleaded guilty Wednesday to abusing detainees at the Abu Ghraib detention center in the first court-martial of an American soldier involved in the prison scandal.

He was sentenced to a year in a military prison.

At a heavily guarded military hearing in Baghdad, the 24-year-old Army reservist from Pennsylvania, who snapped one of the now-infamous photos of prisoner maltreatment, apologized to the detainees, the Iraqi people, the Army and his family for his actions in November.

“I let everyone down,” said Sivits, his voice cracking with emotion during the 3 1/2-hour hearing in the Green Zone, headquarters for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority. “I should have protected those detainees that night.... I’m sorry for what I’ve done.”

As the first of the guards to be prosecuted, and as one who has already admitted guilt, Sivits is shaping up as the government’s star witness -- a fellow reservist from the 372nd Military Police Company who was on the prison tier when detainees were abused and humiliated. His testimony would give critical context to the photographs prosecutors probably would use to seek convictions of the others.

But Sivits also could end up helping the defense.

He has told military authorities that intelligence officers often encouraged the guards to “soften up” the detainees -- an assertion that lies at the heart of their defense. Future criminal charges could be filed against intelligence officers.

Sivits testified that he watched and took one photograph as other soldiers physically abused and sexually humiliated seven Iraqi detainees, who were punched, stripped and forced to masturbate and simulate oral sex.

As they carried out the abuse, the soldiers photographed themselves laughing and smiling next to the detainees, images that spurred outrage throughout the world and launched numerous investigations in Washington and Iraq.

Before sentencing, U.S. Army judge Col. James Pohl asked Sivits: “Did you know this was wrong?”

“Yes, sir,” Sivits replied.

“Did you have a duty to prevent this?” the judge asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you try to stop this?”

“No, sir.”

Without comment, Pohl sentenced Sivits to one year in military prison, demoted him to the rank of private and discharged him from the Army for bad conduct.

As part of his plea agreement, Sivits agreed to testify against fellow soldiers in exchange for the one-year prison term. He has the right to appeal to military officials in Iraq and Washington for a reduction in his sentence.

Six other Army Reservists working as prison guards at Abu Ghraib have been accused of mistreating detainees. Three of the guards, including two alleged ringleaders of the abuse, were arraigned earlier Wednesday in the same makeshift courtroom. Sgt. Javal S. Davis, Staff Sgt. Ivan L. “Chip” Frederick II and Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. exercised their right to hire civilian attorneys. They are expected to plead not guilty on June 21.

Attorneys for the soldiers have said they were following orders from superior officers and from military intelligence officials who wanted the prisoners intimidated before interrogation.

Several of the lawyers for the other six guards who have been accused have castigated Sivits, saying he was willing to lie to military prosecutors to save himself.

Half a dozen other officers and government contract employees, many of whom worked in the military intelligence operation at the prison, have been relieved of duty and reprimanded. Army Reserve Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who had overall command of military prisons in Iraq at the time, has been reprimanded.

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the ground commander in Iraq, appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, strongly suggested Wednesday that Karpinski and the others could eventually face criminal charges as well.

“We may find that the evidence produced in these investigations not only leads to more courts-martial but causes us to revisit actions previously taken,” Sanchez said.

Sivits has already given lengthy statements about prisoner abuse he said he saw along Tier 1A at the Abu Ghraib prison last fall, and also has claimed to have firsthand knowledge of cavalier attitudes toward Iraqi detainees.

In riveting and emotional testimony, Sivits described how he became an accidental participant in the events of Nov. 8. The mechanic said he had just finished maintenance work on a generator and was chatting with Frederick when a group of Iraqis suspected of plotting a riot were detained.

Sivits, who had no formal training as a military police officer, said he volunteered to escort one of the detainees from the holding cells to an isolation area.

As he approached the isolation area, he said he heard Graner yelling at a group of detainees lying in a pile on the floor and saw Davis and Pfc. Lynndie England, who appears in several of the photographs, stomping on the hands and feet of the men. The detainees were clothed at that point, he said.

Rather than leave or report the abuse, Sivits said he led the detainee under his control into the isolation area and “pushed him in the pile.... Once I saw people being stomped on, I knew he [the detainee] was going to be assaulted.”

Sivits testified that Frederick, without apparent provocation, punched one detainee in the chest so hard that a medic was called to ensure that the man was not suffering from cardiac arrest.

Graner hit another detainee in the head, apparently knocking him unconscious, Sivits testified.

“I think you knocked him out,” Sivits recalled telling Graner.

“ ‘Damn, that hurt,’ ” Sivits said Graner replied, referring to his own fist.

The group then stripped the detainees and arranged them into a human pyramid, which they then photographed, he testified.

Sivits said he believed that the prisoners were aware that photos were being taken during the ordeal, which he said probably added to their humiliation.

“They couldn’t see the pictures being taken, but they could hear the snap and see the flash through their sandbags,” placed over their heads.

After that, the naked detainees were ordered to stand against the wall, where soldiers commented on the size of their penises and ordered some to masturbate, according to Sivits. He said Garner and Fredericks ordered one detainee to kneel in front of another to simulate oral sex.

“I had enough and left,” Sivits said.

During his testimony, Sivits did not mention other examples of abuse that he detailed in a previous sworn statement, including that Davis ran and jumped on a pile of detainees; that the detainees were forced to hit one another; and that Graner used a nightstick to strike a detainee who had also suffered a gunshot wound in the leg.

Before sentencing, Sivits pleaded with the court to spare his military career, characterizing himself as a small-town Little League coach who only wanted to serve his country.

“I wanted to help the people of Iraq be free,” he said. “I’ve learned a huge lesson: You have to stand up for what is right. You can’t let people abuse people like they have done.”

During the hearing, Capt. John McCabe, the Army attorney prosecuting the case, said Sivits’ actions at the prison last fall were a violation of “army values and human values.”

“We must send a message ... that the U.S. Army will not tolerate such actions,” McCabe said.

Sivits’ testimony provided some support for the contention by other soldiers that their actions were approved and encouraged by military intelligence officials.

“They said they were told by MI [military intelligence] to keep doing what they were doing because it was working,” Sivits said. The Iraqis “were talking.”

But Sivits also suggested that prisoner abuse was not widely practiced or accepted at Abu Ghraib. In fact, he and other soldiers testified that Sivits’ military police company was stigmatized once word about the abuse spread around to other military units.

“We were getting looked down upon as undisciplined, worthless soldiers,” Spc. Matthew Wisdom told the court.

Sanders reported from Baghdad and Serrano from Washington.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

The case against Sivits

U.S. Army Reserve Spc. Jeremy Sivits pleaded guilty to three counts of abuse at a court-martial hearing Wednesday in Iraq, the first defendant to go on trial in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal. These are the separate counts as stated in his military indictment:

* Charge 1: Maltreatment of subordinates by taking “a photograph of nude detainees being forced into a human pyramid position.”

* Charge 2: Sivits “negligently failed to protect detainees from abuse, cruelty and maltreatment, as it was his duty to do.”

* Charge 3: Sivits “did maltreat a detainee, a person subject to his orders, by escorting the detainee to be positioned in a pile on the floor to be assaulted by other soldiers.”

Associated Press

Los Angeles Times