Witness Faults Actions of Prison Interrogators

A member of the military intelligence battalion operating at the Abu Ghraib prison testified at a secret hearing in Baghdad this month that interrogators at the prison sometimes went too far in trying to extract information from detainees.

It was the first known instance of a member of an intelligence unit testifying about misconduct by interrogators at the notorious prison outside Baghdad that is at the center of the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal involving military prison guards.

In testimony described in military documents obtained by The Times, Sgt. Samuel Jefferson Provance III said a military interrogator he identified as Spc. Armin John Cruz often played rough with detainees when they were taken to special booths to be interviewed.

“Spc. Cruz was known to bang on the table, yell, scream and maybe assaulted detainees during interrogations in the booth,” Provance testified. “This was not to be discussed. It was kept ‘hush-hush’ by the individual interrogators.” It was unclear whether Cruz was disciplined.

In the same documents, which were recorded at a hearing into the conduct of one of the seven military police under investigation for abuses at Abu Ghraib, the Army’s lead investigator said the guards were a rogue band “just having some fun with the prisoners” and not carrying out orders to “soften up” detainees for interrogation.

The investigator said his team had found “absolutely no evidence” that the abuses had been authorized by officers in the Army chain of command.

The new information came as officials in Baghdad announced that two more of the seven Abu Ghraib guards would stand trial at courts-martial. One of them, Staff Sgt. Ivan L. “Chip” Frederick II, was accused of taking some of the photographs of mistreatment that have drawn outrage worldwide.

He also was charged with directing prisoners to commit sexual acts, which were photographed, documents outlining the charges said.

And Sgt. Javal S. Davis was charged with taking part in an incident in which a group of detainees was forced into a pile on the prison floor and then physically assaulted by guards.

Frederick and Davis became the second and third military policemen to face courts-martial in connection with the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib. The first soldier charged, Spc. Jeremy Sivits, could be sentenced to a maximum of one year in jail if convicted.

Frederick and Davis may face much heavier sentences in so-called general court-martial proceedings. Sivits’ court-martial is scheduled to begin May 19 in Baghdad. No date was given for proceedings involving Frederick and Davis.

Several of the military police have told investigators that they were directed by military intelligence officers at Abu Ghraib to soften up detainees before they were scheduled to be questioned by military and civilian interrogators. Some lawmakers and military brass have questioned whether the practice may have led directly to some of the abuses.

Military officials emphasized that the investigation of the Abu Ghraib incidents were continuing, along with investigations of what may be dozens of other instances of prisoner abuse there and elsewhere in Iraq. Additional charges were likely to be filed, officials indicated.

And, although officers in the chain of command may not have known about the abuses, military investigators have said it was their responsibility to know what was going on.

At the closed military hearing in Baghdad this month, Sgt. Provance described an incident in which Spc. Luciana Spencer, another military interrogator, “made a detainee walk to his cell naked in front of other detainees.” He said she was later relieved from her assignment.

Provance also said that Spc. Hanna Slagel told him that guards “made [male detainees] wear women’s panties, and if they cooperated, some would get an extra blanket.”

He said she also told him that because two detainees were accused of raping a child, the guards “punished them by making them get into all sorts of sexual positions.”

Provance said intelligence officers were guilty of at least not reporting cases of abuse.

He added that a colleague from a Nevada National Guard unit, whom he described as an older female soldier, told him of “some stuff that she saw going on.” He said she documented the abuse, but that her chain of command admonished her for reporting it.

“She was afraid of the chain of command,” Provance said.

At the same hearing on the seven Abu Ghraib guards, Special Agent Tyler Pieron of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, a key detective in the growing scandal, identified ringleaders as Spc. Charles A. Graner Jr. and Frederick and Davis.

He said the three, along with four others, abused prisoners in the middle of the night “after the chain-of-command shifts had gone home.” They were caught only after another guard saw photographs of the abuse and turned them in because he “wanted the abuse to stop,” Pieron is quoted in the court-martial documents as saying.

The hearing was held May 1 into charges against Spc. Megan M. Ambuhl, one of seven members of the 372nd Military Police Company who have been implicated in the prison incidents. She has been accused of four offenses: conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment of prisoners, and indecent acts.

But on May 8, the hearing officer in her case recommended that the latter two charges be dismissed. Maj. Charles W. Ransome said he found several weaknesses in the case against her. He ruled that, while Ambuhl was “present” when naked detainees were stacked into a pyramid and when they were forced to masturbate, she had not “carried out any act of cruelty or maltreatment” against them.

But Ransome invited military prosecutors to provide fresh evidence if they wanted to keep all four charges intact against Ambuhl for a future court-martial.

Ambuhl and the six others who have been charged have pleaded not guilty.

Pieron, the army criminal investigator, said the seven guards operated on their own without any of their superiors aware that they were abusing detainees.

Many of the abused prisoners were never supposed to have been interrogated, Pieron said. Rather, he said, the guards were upset because the prisoners had been in a fight. “This appeared to me to be just retaliation against the rioters,” Pieron said.

He added, “Taking pictures of sexual positions, the assaults, and things along that nature were done simply because they could. It all happened after hours.

“These individuals wanted to do this for fun,” he said.

Pieron said some guards had complained to Frederick about prisoner mistreatment. Apparently, Pieron added, when those complaints to him were made, “it did not go anywhere.”

Pieron also said Davis was interviewed twice by investigators and that he “lied in his first statement, and told the truth in his second statement, admitting to stepping, stomping, and jumping on the detainees.”

Pieron said his unit interviewed all of the military interrogators and found no proof that they encouraged the abuse.Dan Senor, chief spokesman for L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, told Iraqi journalists Wednesday: “We share your outrage. What occurred at Abu Ghraib offends the sensibilities of all Americans. It offends the sensibilities of all Iraqis.”

Serrano reported from Washington and McDonnell from Baghdad.