FORT HOOD, May 14: A soldier already convicted of abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal testified on Friday that he was the one who attached wires to a hooded Iraqi in an attempt to find the bodies of four US soldiers and locate their killers. Private Ivan Frederick’s testimony did not appear to help the government’s case against former pizza restaurant worker Spc Sabrina Harman, who the government has charged with placing wires on the prisoner pictured in a photo that sparked global outrage.
Sabrina Harman faces six years in prison if convicted on all charges, which include attaching wires to the Iraqi and telling him he would be electrocuted if he stepped off a box. Ivan Frederick, already serving an eight-year prison sentence, said the Iraqi man was thought to have information about who killed four US troops and where their bodies were. An investigator wanted him to be sleep deprived before interrogation the next day, he said.
“Agent Romero wanted him stressed,” Mr Frederick told a military court at the US’s largest army base. Mr Frederick said a second soldier later placed the Iraqi man on the box.
The soldier said investigators later learned the Iraqi did not have information about the deaths, and that he was eventually given special privileges. Spc. Israel Rivera said he was too intimidated to report the incident or to protest. “They were the ones with the authority.”
Asked why he did not report the incident, he responded: “It seemed like it would be compromising my own safety. If they were willing to do this to a detainee, why wouldn’t they do this to me?”—Reuters
