A military jury convicted the second soldier to be tried in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, returning guilty verdicts on all but one of the seven charges she faced for her role in the abuse of Iraqi inmates.
A panel of four Army officers and four senior enlisted soldiers convicted Specialist Sabrina Harman Monday on one count of conspiracy to maltreat detainees, four counts of maltreating detainees and one count of dereliction of duty.
The 27-year-old reservist from Lorton, Virginia, was acquitted on one maltreatment count that accused her of photographing a group of Iraqi detainees who were forced to masturbate in public by Abu Ghraib guards. One of Harman's co-defendants testified last week that she was not present when that incident occurred.
The jury also found that Harman did not commit two of the nine acts that were part of the dereliction charge, but she was convicted of the overall offense.
Jurors deliberated for about 3 1/2 hours before returning their decision. Harman showed no reaction while the jury foreman read each of the verdicts. She left the building without speaking to reporters.
Her sentencing hearing was scheduled to begin Tuesday. Harman faces a maximum of 5 1/2 years in a military prison.
Harman, a former pizza shop manager from Virginia, was the second soldier to be tried for allegedly mistreating prisoners at Abu Ghraib. She was depicted in several of the most notorious photos taken at Abu Ghraib in late October and early November 2003, and she is accused of taking other pictures.
Harman posed for a photo with Private Charles Graner behind a group of naked detainees stacked in a pyramid. In another photo, she was shown with a prisoner on whose leg she is accused of writing "rapeist" (sic).
Earlier Monday, prosecutors said in closing arguments that Harman and other guards on the night shift at Abu Ghraib conspired to mistreat the prisoners.
"They were all acting together for their own amusement," said Captain Chris Graveline. "There was no justification for what they did that night."
Graveline said the group took pictures of what they were doing "so they could remember that night, so they could laugh again at these men ... There's nothing funny about what happened at Abu Ghraib."
Defense lawyer Frank Spinner said Harman was a novice soldier who had no prison guard experience and who received virtually no training before going to work at the chaotic and overcrowded prison as part of the Maryland-based 372nd Military Police Company.
"Shame on the Army for putting an ill-equipped, ill-trained junior specialist in a position where she had to challenge her [enlisted] leadership to do the right thing," he said after putting on a case that lasted only a few hours. "This is not one of the Army's finest moments."
The final witness was Kelly Bryant, Harman's roommate in Virginia, who read part of a letter Harman wrote home in late October 2003.
In the letter, Harman said she took pictures of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib because she was opposed to the treatment and wanted to document the wrongdoing.
"At first I thought it was funny, but these people are going too far," Harman wrote. "Kelly, it's awful. I thought I could handle anything, but I was wrong."
Harman said in the letter that her initial amusement at how the detainees were mistreated gave way to the realization that her co-defendants were engaged in illegal activity.
"It hit me it was a form of molestation -- you can't do that," she wrote. "What if that was me in their shoes?"
Six co-defendants in the Abu Ghraib case have made plea bargains. Graner was convicted in January and is now serving a 10-year sentence in an Army prison.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese