Lawyer Decries Sailor’s Brig Stay

A Navy corpsman is being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment while being kept in the brig at Camp Pendleton awaiting charges in the death of an Iraqi, the prisoner’s attorney said Tuesday.

Attorney Jeremiah J. Sullivan III said his client, whom he described as a 20-year-old corpsman who has served two combat tours in Iraq, is in solitary confinement and is shackled when he is let out of his cell to exercise.

Sullivan told reporters that the treatment afforded his client is harsher than that meted out to accused terrorists being kept in confinement by the U.S. military.

“It’s cruel and unusual, and it’s unnecessary,” Sullivan said.

The corpsman is being held pending charges in the April 26 death in Hamandiya of an Iraqi man. Seven Marines also are being held in the brig and four other Marines have been restricted to base.

Officials have said the eight troops in the brig are suspected of dragging an Iraqi man out of his home, killing him and then planting a shovel and AK-47 near the body to suggest that he had been planting a roadside bomb.

A Marine spokeswoman denied that any of the suspects were being treated cruelly.

Capt. Carrie C. Batson said that after an initial investigation, a decision was made by officials that the eight members of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment, 1st Marine Division, should be given “the maximum level of restraint.”

“Consequently,” she said, “when service members leave their cell, they are fully restrained with handcuffs attached to a leather belt and leg cuffs while being escorted by a correctional specialist as a safety precaution.”

Batson said the eight have access to books, television and music, are medically evaluated several times a day, and may receive visits from a chaplain.

Sullivan, a former Navy attorney who successfully defended two SEALs accused of mistreating a prisoner being brought to the Abu Ghraib prison, predicted that charges of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy would be filed this week.

During interrogations, he said, his client has been threatened with the death penalty.

Sullivan said his client received a Purple Heart for his first tour in Iraq. “He put his life on the line for all of us.”