A military judge yesterday declared the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad a crime scene that cannot be dismantled -- as US President George W. Bush had offered -- and denied a defense motion to move the trial of a soldier accused of abusing prisoners there out of Iraq.
The judge, Colonel James Pohl, issued the orders at pretrial hearings for Sergeant Javal Davis, one of the seven soldiers who had been accused of mistreating Iraqi detainees. One of the seven, Specialist Jeremy Sivits, pleaded guilty last month and was sentenced to one year in prison.
PHOTO: AP
Pohl was also to hear motions yesterday in the cases against two other defendants, Specialist Charles Graner, Jr., and Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick II.
In the first hearing, Pohl turned down motions submitted by Davis' lawyers to move the trial from Iraq and to order a new Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding.
Pohl declared the prison a crime scene and said it could not be destroyed until the case was adjudicated. Bush had offered to dismantle the facility to help remove the stain of torture and abuse from the new Iraq -- an offer Iraqi officials had already dismissed.
Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein used Abu Ghraib to torture and murder his opponents.
Davis' civilian lawyer, Paul Bergrin, won permission to seek testimony from the top US general in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, and from the chief of the US Central Command, General John Abizaid.
But the judge turned down a request to seek testimony from higher-ranking witnesses, including US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
But Pohl left open the possibility of calling other senior figures if the defense could show their testimony was relevant.
Defense lawyers for the soldiers have long maintained their clients were simply following orders and that instructions for harsh treatment of detainees came from the highest levels of the US government.
Bergrin told reporters during a recess that he thought the hearing had gone well. He said that lower-echelon troops at the prison had worked under intense pressure from their commanders and the CIA and were using "Israeli methods" -- including nudity -- known to work against Arab prisoners.
The hearings took place in the Baghdad Convention Center in the heavily guarded Green Zone, the nerve center of the US-run occupation of Iraq. US authorities hope the proceedings will convince Iraqis that the US does not tolerate abuses of civil liberties.
Davis' military lawyer, Captain Scott Dunn, failed to win an order to reopen the Article 32 investigation, which would have dismissed the current charges. Dunn had argued that the military failed to make available a witness during the Article 32 proceedings, which ended with a recommendation for court martial.
However, the judge granted a request by Bergrin to declassify all parts of an Army investigation report conducted by Major General Antonio Taguba.
As the session began, Dunn, the military lawyer, said the defense understood that security conditions in Iraq made it difficult to provide access to some witnesses. He wanted to question an inmate at Abu Ghraib.
Dunn said his client still had a right to confront his accusers.
"We couldn't go to him. They wouldn't bring him to us. They said it was impossible to obtain any telephone testimony. We object to not obtaining his testimony at all," Dunn said.
Meanwhile, four US soldiers were found dead in a building site in the town of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, apparently killed in an attack by insurgents, witnesses said.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
RSS