One of the Army reservists charged with abusing Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison said that he will plead guilty to some offenses.
Staff Sergeant Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick, of the Maryland-based 372nd Military Police Company, said Monday in a statement given to the Associated Press by his attorney: "I have accepted responsibility for my actions at Abu Ghraib prison. I will be pleading guilty to certain charges because I have concluded that what I did was a violation of law."
Frederick does not specify the charges to which he will plead guilty, and it wasn't clear whether he will continue contesting any of the allegations. He is charged with maltreating detainees, conspiracy to maltreat detainees, dereliction of duty and wrongfully committing an indecent act.
Meanwhile, a military trial began Monday for a Marine reservist who faces charges he delivered a karate kick to the chest of an Iraqi prisoner who later suffocated from a crushed windpipe. The assault case against Reserve Sergeant Gary Pittman is the first court-martial known to be connected to the death of a prisoner in Iraq.
The prisoner of war, Nagem Sadoon Hatab, had been rumored to be an official of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party and part of the ambush of a US Army convoy that left 11 soldiers dead.
Pittman, who in civilian life was a guard at a federal prison, could get more than three years in a military prison if found guilty of assault and dereliction of duty.
Frederick, 37, has a pretrial hearing scheduled for yesterday in Mannheim, Germany.
Frederick, a prison guard at a Virginia state facility in civilian life, is among seven members of the 372nd charged in the scandal, which involves physical abuse and sexual humiliation of prisoners.
He would be the second of the seven to admit wrongdoing. Specialist Jeremy C. Sivits pleaded guilty to three abuse charges in May and was sentenced to a year in prison.
Frederick was the senior enlisted soldier at the Abu Ghraib prison between October and December, when the mistreatment allegedly occurred. He was among the first to be publicly identified by CBS television's 60 Minutes II when it broke the story April 28.
One of the photos from the prison shows him standing behind a naked prisoner smeared with feces. Frederick's family members have said that the inmate spread the feces on himself. Frederick has claimed the abusive treatment -- inmates stripped naked, cuffed to their cells -- was orchestrated by military intelligence officers rather than MPs, according to a diary that his family made available.
Also on Monday, a military judge hearing evidence in the abuse cases demanded that prosecutors speed up the investigation.
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