2 British Soldiers Convicted of Abuse

A military jury convicted two British servicemen Wednesday of involvement in abusing Iraqi civilians, after a monthlong court-martial at a British base in Germany.

The panel of seven senior officers found Lance Cpl. Mark Cooley, 25, and Cpl. Daniel Kenyon, 33, guilty. A third defendant, Lance Cpl. Darren Larkin, 30, had pleaded guilty. Sentencing for all three was set for Friday.

The charges related to the abuse of Iraqi civilians suspected of looting a humanitarian aid warehouse guarded by the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers outside the southern Iraqi city of Basra. The incidents occurred in May 2003, two months after the U.S.-led war began.

Photos of the abuse provoked dismay in Britain after being published in newspapers, leading to comparisons with the scandal over the humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad.

Kenyon was convicted of aiding and abetting the beating of a detainee and failing to report an incident in which a bound detainee was hoisted on a forklift. He also was convicted of failing to report that other soldiers forced two stripped Iraqi men to simulate oral sex.

Kenyon faces up to two years in prison.

Cooley was convicted of hoisting the man on the forklift and simulating punching a detainee. He also faces up to two years in prison.

Larkin pleaded guilty at the start of the trial to one count of battery, acknowledging that he was the man shown in a photo standing with both feet on a bound Iraqi lying on the ground. He faces up to six months in prison.

A fourth soldier, Fusilier Gary Bartlam, 20, who took the photos, was sentenced to 18 months after a separate trial in January.