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.
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
RSS