BAGHDAD, Sept 11: The first member of US military intelligence to be tried for abusing Iraqis in Abu Ghraib prison was sentenced on Saturday to eight months in prison.

Specialist Armin J. Cruz, 24, of Plano, Texas, pleaded guilty minutes after his court martial hearing opened in Baghdad 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.

Cruz of the 502nd Military Intelligence battalion admitted ordering soldiers to force naked and handcuffed Iraqi detainees to crawl on the floor, according to the military's chargesheet.

He also confessed to conspiring with military police to cover up the abuse and to mistreating subordinates as he carried out the cover-up. Cruz, who joined the army in Sept 2000, is to appeal against sentence. He had faced a maximum punishment of up to a year in jail, demotion to private, a fine of two-thirds of his salary and a bad-conduct discharge.

The abuses at Abu Ghraib prison that saw Iraqi detainees beaten and stacked naked in pyramids have been linked to a serious breakdown in the US military's detention centres after the Pentagon introduced new "get-tough" interrogation methods in the aftermath of Sept 11.

Initially, the White House insisted that sexual and physical mistreatment at Abu Ghraib, which rights group have said amounted to torture, was limited to the seven military police prison guards who were the first to be charged.-AFP