Guard Was ‘Primary Torturer,’ Prisoner Says

The videotaped image of a foreign fighter captured in Iraq shone from a screen in a military courtroom here Tuesday and pronounced Army Spc. Charles A. Graner Jr., the accused ringleader of rogue soldiers who systematically abused prisoners, as the “true face of the United States.”

The testimony of Ameen Said Sheikh hinted at the damage done to the American image in the Arab world by the scandal at Abu Ghraib prison. But as a Syrian captured with a cache of weapons, he also represented an enemy bent on killing U.S. troops such as Graner.

The defense in Graner’s court-martial on charges of abusing prisoners sought to portray the situation in that light: with Graner as an American soldier working in a highly dangerous environment whose alleged rough treatment of prisoners was understandable. “The last time I saw him, he threatened to kill me,” Graner said after Sheikh’s testimony.

But Sheikh -- one of two Abu Ghraib prisoners to testify against Graner -- identified him as “the primary torturer,” gleefully beating and humiliating inmates, encouraging other soldiers to join in, all the while, he said, insulting the Islamic faith.

A second prisoner, Hussein Mutar, testified that soldiers who worked under Graner forced him to strip, masturbate and climb atop a pyramid of other naked detainees. A digital photograph depicting the pyramid was among the images of Abu Ghraib transmitted around the world.

Mutar said his head was covered in a sandbag at times but that he noticed one soldier with a tattoo and wearing prescription glasses, possibly a description of Graner. “All I could hear,” Mutar said, “was their laughing.”

Jurors in Graner’s court-martial will decide whether to accept the claim by the former Pennsylvania prison guard that he and other American soldiers were only following orders to “soften up” prisoners as they roamed the infamous prison compound outside Iraq. Four soldiers have pleaded guilty and two more are awaiting trial.

Prosecutors rested their case Tuesday after calling 14 witnesses in two days. The defense also plans to call 14 witnesses beginning today, possibly including Graner.

Testifying largely through interpreters in separate depositions videotaped last month in Iraq, the two men -- who remain incarcerated -- appeared nervous and soft-spoken. They often bowed their heads, sometimes struggling to express themselves with hand gestures. They criticized the United States and voiced skepticism that American military justice would hold Graner or other accused soldiers accountable.

Mutar, an Iraqi, appeared near tears.

“I couldn’t imagine in the beginning that this would happen,” he said, his head turned away. “I wished that I could kill myself because no one over there would stop what was going on.”

Sheikh, who testified that he entered Iraq from Syria heavily armed and on a religious jihad to fight Americans, said Graner represented “people who are sick-minded.”

“That Graner guy is a man that hurt his country, hurt his people,” Sheikh said. “I think he should receive punishment, God bless.”

Guy Womack, Graner’s civilian attorney, predicted outside the courtroom that testimony by prisoners like Sheikh would actually boomerang and drive home for jurors the hazards of guard duty in Iraq.

“That was very helpful testimony,” Womack said. “It would offend the jury. It’s the face of the enemy and it’s very clear he hates America.”

Sheikh testified that he persuaded an Iraqi guard at Abu Ghraib to smuggle a handgun for him, an incident that has been spelled out in Army investigations of Abu Ghraib. When guards found the gun, a firefight erupted. A U.S. soldier was slightly injured, and Sheikh said he was shot in both legs.

Sheikh testified that he wanted the gun in order to break out of prison to escape the beatings.

Graner, 36, said before Tuesday’s testimony that he thought the case was going “fantastic, fantastic.”

The jury of four officers and six enlisted men were shown copies of eight e-mails Graner wrote in December 2003, at the height of the alleged abuse, and that included some photographs of injured prisoners, including one whom Graner was said to have stitched up after hitting him in the head.

The e-mails were not made public. Capt. Chuck Neill of the staff judge advocate’s office at Ft. Hood, who reviewed the messages, said Graner sent them from Baghdad to his then-wife, a son, and other relatives and friends.

The government provided the e-mails to the jury to “show what his state of mind was then,” Neill said. He added that “nothing in these suggests he was following orders at the time.”

Another official closely involved in the case, who declined to be identified, said the eight e-mails were only a smattering of those Graner sent. In other ones, he said, Graner bragged about hitting one inmate “so hard my hand hurt,” and that “I got a full body workout” in another attack on a prisoner.

The jurors also were shown a notebook and a copy of Graner’s Army Code of Conduct manual. He took notes in the manual, an indication he knew it was illegal to abuse prisoners, Neill said.

In the notebook, the source said, Graner jotted down notes on “how to hit someone and not leave a mark.”

The videotaped testimony from the two detainees took up most of the day in court.

Sheikh said he left his wife and children in Syria and traveled to Iraq in the summer of 2003 to fight the U.S. military as part of his “religious duty.” He said he then believed America had “spoiled” Iraq and the Islamic world.

He was arrested carrying several AK-47 firearms, grenades, and bomb-making material. At first he was held in a prison camp near Abu Ghraib, where a riot erupted when an inmate was assaulted. He and other prisoners were transferred to Abu Ghraib, where he said military interrogators repeatedly threatened him and guards abused him.

“It was Graner and his torturers,” he said. “Graner and people who worked on the night shift. But Graner was the primary torturer.”

Sheikh said Graner laughed when another guard urinated on him. He said Graner made a Yemeni prisoner “eat from the toilet.” Under Graner’s direction, Sheikh said, guards ganged up on him.

“They took off my clothes. They said certain things about my wife, my religion,” he said. “They hit me in the back, my head. They took me into the bathroom and made me take a shower, and one told me he was going to rape me.” Graner, he said, “was laughing. He laughed. He was whistling. He was singing.”

Then, Sheikh said, “Graner hit me and he made me say something against my religion. He made me say like, ‘Thank Jesus because he gave you life.’ But in my religion, only Allah gave me life. Not Jesus.”