A military judge yesterday declared the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad a crime scene that cannot be dismantled -- as US President George W. Bush had offered -- and denied a defense motion to move the trial of a soldier accused of abusing prisoners there out of Iraq.
The judge, Colonel James Pohl, issued the orders at pretrial hearings for Sergeant Javal Davis, one of the seven soldiers who had been accused of mistreating Iraqi detainees. One of the seven, Specialist Jeremy Sivits, pleaded guilty last month and was sentenced to one year in prison.
PHOTO: AP
Pohl was also to hear motions yesterday in the cases against two other defendants, Specialist Charles Graner, Jr., and Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick II.
In the first hearing, Pohl turned down motions submitted by Davis' lawyers to move the trial from Iraq and to order a new Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding.
Pohl declared the prison a crime scene and said it could not be destroyed until the case was adjudicated. Bush had offered to dismantle the facility to help remove the stain of torture and abuse from the new Iraq -- an offer Iraqi officials had already dismissed.
Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein used Abu Ghraib to torture and murder his opponents.
Davis' civilian lawyer, Paul Bergrin, won permission to seek testimony from the top US general in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, and from the chief of the US Central Command, General John Abizaid.
But the judge turned down a request to seek testimony from higher-ranking witnesses, including US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
But Pohl left open the possibility of calling other senior figures if the defense could show their testimony was relevant.
Defense lawyers for the soldiers have long maintained their clients were simply following orders and that instructions for harsh treatment of detainees came from the highest levels of the US government.
Bergrin told reporters during a recess that he thought the hearing had gone well. He said that lower-echelon troops at the prison had worked under intense pressure from their commanders and the CIA and were using "Israeli methods" -- including nudity -- known to work against Arab prisoners.
The hearings took place in the Baghdad Convention Center in the heavily guarded Green Zone, the nerve center of the US-run occupation of Iraq. US authorities hope the proceedings will convince Iraqis that the US does not tolerate abuses of civil liberties.
Davis' military lawyer, Captain Scott Dunn, failed to win an order to reopen the Article 32 investigation, which would have dismissed the current charges. Dunn had argued that the military failed to make available a witness during the Article 32 proceedings, which ended with a recommendation for court martial.
However, the judge granted a request by Bergrin to declassify all parts of an Army investigation report conducted by Major General Antonio Taguba.
As the session began, Dunn, the military lawyer, said the defense understood that security conditions in Iraq made it difficult to provide access to some witnesses. He wanted to question an inmate at Abu Ghraib.
Dunn said his client still had a right to confront his accusers.
"We couldn't go to him. They wouldn't bring him to us. They said it was impossible to obtain any telephone testimony. We object to not obtaining his testimony at all," Dunn said.
Meanwhile, four US soldiers were found dead in a building site in the town of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, apparently killed in an attack by insurgents, witnesses said.
PROVOCATIVE: Chinese Deputy Ambassador to the UN Sun Lei accused Japan of sending military vessels to deliberately provoke tensions in the Taiwan Strait China denounced remarks by Japan and the EU about the South China Sea at a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, and accused Tokyo of provocative behavior in the Taiwan Strait and planning military expansion. Ayano Kunimitsu, a Japanese vice foreign minister, told the Council meeting on maritime security that Tokyo was seriously concerned about the situation in the East China and South China seas, and reiterated Japan’s opposition to any attempt to change the “status quo” by force, and obstruction of freedom of navigation and overflight. Stavros Lambrinidis, head of the EU delegation to the UN, also highlighted South China Sea
The final batch of 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks purchased from the US arrived at Taipei Port last night and were transported to the Armor Training Command in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), completing the military’s multi-year procurement of 108 of the tanks. Starting at 12:10am today, reporters observed more than a dozen civilian flatbed trailers departing from Taipei Port, each carrying an M1A2T tank covered with black waterproof tarps. Escorted by military vehicles, the convoy traveled via the West Coast Expressway to the Armor Training Command, with police implementing traffic control. The army operates about 1,000 tanks, including CM-11 Brave Tiger
China on Wednesday teased in a video an aircraft carrier that could be its fourth, and the first using nuclear power, while making an allusion to Taiwan and vowing to further build up its islands, as it looks to boost maritime power, secure resources and bolster territorial claims. The video, issued on the eve of the 77th founding anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, featured fictional officers with names that are homophones of three commissioned aircraft carriers, the Liaoning (遼寧), Shandong (山東) and Fujian (福建). Titled Into the Deep, it showed a 19-year-old named “Hejian” (何劍) joining the group, sparking
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said it expects its 2-nanometer (2nm) chip capacity to grow at a compound annual rate of 70 percent from this year to 2028. The projection comes as five fabs begin volume production of 2-nanometer chips this year — two in Hsinchu and three in Kaohsiung — TSMC senior vice president and deputy cochief operating officer Cliff Hou (侯永清) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Silicon Valley, California, last week. Output in the first year of 2-nanometer production, which began in the fourth quarter of last year, is expected to
RSS