The first US military intelligence soldier brought to court in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal was sentenced on Saturday to eight months in prison, demoted to private and expelled from the military.
Specialist Armin J. Cruz, 24, of Plano, Texas, pleaded guilty minutes after his special court martial hearing opened but the judge's deliberations extended until Saturday afternoon.
"He has been sentenced to reduction to private, confinement for eight months and a bad-conduct discharge. His confinement location has not yet been determined," said military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Steven Boylan.
In an ironic twist, the hearing coincided with the third anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington that left nearly 3,000 people dead.
Breakdown
The abuses at Abu Ghraib prison have been linked to a serious breakdown at US military's detention centers as the Pentagon introduced new "get-tough" interrogation methods in the aftermath of Sept. 11.
Cruz of the 502nd Military Intelligence battalion confessed to ordering soldiers to force naked and handcuffed Iraqi detainees to crawl so their genitals dragged on the floor.
He also admitted to conspiring with military police to cover up the abuse of Iraqi detainees and mistreating subordinates as he carried out the cover-up.
Six character witness testimonies from Cruz's peers were heard in the make-shift courtroom inside the heavily-fortified US and Iraqi headquarters in Baghdad.
Three soldiers testified in person and three others appeared by video, causing Cruz to lose his composure and the military judge, Colonel James Pohl, to call a brief recess.
The young soldier, who has cropped dark brown hair and a square jaw, sat slightly hunched in the dock, according to a military courtroom drawing.
Pohl asked the young soldier why he had participated in the gravest US military scandal in decades and Cruz answered sheepishly he had no good reason.
Both the defense and prosecution invoked the legacy of Sept. 11 in the court room and the new wave of US-led interventionism launched in the wake of the attacks three years ago.
In a video-taped message, Cruz's parents standing at the hearth-side said their son had sacrificed his education to serve his county in the "war on terror" but in this case he had failed to follow his own personal code.
A lawyer for the prosecution said Cruz and the others implicated in the Abu Ghraib scandal had tarnished both the US army and America's image around the world.
Cruz, who joined the army in September 2000, faced a maximum sentence of up to a year in jail, demotion to private, a fine of two-thirds of his salary and a bad-conduct discharge.
The US authorities have already charged seven soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company with involvement in prisoner abuse at the notorious jail outside Baghdad in late 2003 and one has already been convicted.
The chargesheet mentioned Cruz's collaboration with the alleged ringleaders among the prison guards -- Sergeant Ivan Frederick and Corporal Charles Graner.
Graner and Frederick are accused of being the brains behind some of the photos of naked detainees wearing dogleashes, stacked in pyramids and simulating oral sex that shocked the world when they came to light in late April.
Abu Ghraib, where at least one inmate died, has been the focus of several army investigations and has come to be a black stain on the US record in Iraq.
Twenty-seven military intelligence officers have now been recommended for indictment.
So far, Colonel Thomas Pappas, commander of the 205th military intelligence brigade which Cruz was assigned to, is the highest-level officer whose case has been recommended for disciplinary action.
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