Abu Ghraib Defendant Says Photo Was a Shared Joke

An Army reservist accused of attaching wires to a hooded Iraqi prisoner did so in a joke shared with the prisoner, her lawyer said at the start of a court-martial Thursday.

Spc. Sabrina Harman, who pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, dereliction of duty and maltreatment, also photographed abuses because she wanted to document what she felt was wrongful behavior, lawyer Frank Spinner said.

“She was upset as early as 20 October, 2003, at some of the things she was seeing. She was offended by what she saw and she hoped at some point that she could prove it,” Spinner told a military jury at the start of her trial.

The former restaurant worker, who joined the Reserve after the Sept. 11 attacks, is linked to several of the most notorious Iraqi prisoner abuse photos.

She appears in a photo nearby naked Iraqi prisoners and is charged with taking photos as they were forced to masturbate. She is also charged with placing wires on a detainee dubbed “Gilligan” and telling him he would be electrocuted if he stepped off a box in a picture seen worldwide.

“This was a joke. Gilligan understood it to be a joke. It was all part of their relationship,” Spinner said. “It was a relationship beyond what the pictures showed.”

Later, military investigator Warren Worth said Harman testified in January 2004 that abuse ringleader Pvt. Charles A. Graner Jr. told her military intelligence wanted Gilligan deprived of sleep for interrogation purposes.

In earlier opening arguments, a government prosecutor showed photos of abuse involving Harman and said the motivation for such activity was cruelty, not military intelligence.

“This was soldiers laughing, joking, having fun at the expense of the detainees,” said prosecutor Capt. Chuck Neill.

On Thursday, the Army said it had relieved Army Col. Thomas M. Pappas, the former top military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib, of his command, but it did not charge him criminally.

Last week, the military demoted Army Reserve Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who oversaw U.S.-run prisons in Iraq when the Abu Ghraib abuses took place, and relieved her of her command.