WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army has charged four soldiers, three of them with manslaughter, after the drowning of an Iraqi prisoner who was pushed off a bridge, while a senior general criticized U.S. military detention policies, officials said on Friday.
The soldiers, on patrol near the city of Samarra 60 miles north of Baghdad on Jan. 3, pushed two Iraqis off a bridge at nighttime into the Tigris River after picking up the men on a curfew violation, officials said. One Iraqi drowned, while the other got out of the river.
The case followed revelations about ill-treatment of military prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba.
First Lt. Jack Saville, 24, and Sgt. 1st Class Tracy Perkins, 33, were charged on June 7 with involuntary manslaughter, assault, conspiracy, making false statements and obstruction of justice. Saville faces up to 26 years in prison and Perkins up to 26 1/2 years if convicted.
Two others were charged on Monday. Sgt. Reggie Martinez, 24, was charged with involuntary manslaughter and making a false official statement. Martinez faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. Spec. Terry Bowman, 21, was charged with assault and making a false official statement. Bowman, accused of pushing the Iraqi who survived the fall into the river, faces up to 5 1/2 years if convicted.
All four soldiers, who served in the 4th Infantry Division, will face the military version of a grand jury proceeding before a decision is made on courts-martial.
In a report on one of several investigations after the disclosure of abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, a senior general found major problems with U.S. detainee operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A report by Lt. Gen. Paul Mikolashek, the Army's inspector general, criticized Army policies on prisoner operations as a throwback to the Cold War and designed to handle Soviet prisoners in a European war rather than the extremist Islamic guerrillas now being confronted, a senior Army official said.
The report, which has not been released, did not find systemic abuse of prisoners by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But Mikolashek found significant shortcomings in the training of jailers and interrogators, organization and detention procedures in the handling of prisoners, the official said. The report found those problems contributed to the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the official said.
Since pictures of prisoners being abused by U.S. personnel at Abu Ghraib surfaced in April, the Army has said about three dozen prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan have died while in U.S. custody since 2002.
In another development involving prisoners in U.S. military custody, lawyers representing nine prisoners at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay filed lawsuits in federal court in Washington arguing their detention was unlawful and unconstitutional and seeking their release.
Five cases covering nine prisoners were filed in U.S. District Court four days after the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a defeat to the Bush administration and ruled foreign terrorism suspects held at the base could use the U.S. judicial system to challenge their confinement.
Reuters
The soldiers, on patrol near the city of Samarra 60 miles north of Baghdad on Jan. 3, pushed two Iraqis off a bridge at nighttime into the Tigris River after picking up the men on a curfew violation, officials said. One Iraqi drowned, while the other got out of the river.
The case followed revelations about ill-treatment of military prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba.
First Lt. Jack Saville, 24, and Sgt. 1st Class Tracy Perkins, 33, were charged on June 7 with involuntary manslaughter, assault, conspiracy, making false statements and obstruction of justice. Saville faces up to 26 years in prison and Perkins up to 26 1/2 years if convicted.
Two others were charged on Monday. Sgt. Reggie Martinez, 24, was charged with involuntary manslaughter and making a false official statement. Martinez faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. Spec. Terry Bowman, 21, was charged with assault and making a false official statement. Bowman, accused of pushing the Iraqi who survived the fall into the river, faces up to 5 1/2 years if convicted.
All four soldiers, who served in the 4th Infantry Division, will face the military version of a grand jury proceeding before a decision is made on courts-martial.
In a report on one of several investigations after the disclosure of abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, a senior general found major problems with U.S. detainee operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A report by Lt. Gen. Paul Mikolashek, the Army's inspector general, criticized Army policies on prisoner operations as a throwback to the Cold War and designed to handle Soviet prisoners in a European war rather than the extremist Islamic guerrillas now being confronted, a senior Army official said.
The report, which has not been released, did not find systemic abuse of prisoners by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But Mikolashek found significant shortcomings in the training of jailers and interrogators, organization and detention procedures in the handling of prisoners, the official said. The report found those problems contributed to the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the official said.
Since pictures of prisoners being abused by U.S. personnel at Abu Ghraib surfaced in April, the Army has said about three dozen prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan have died while in U.S. custody since 2002.
In another development involving prisoners in U.S. military custody, lawyers representing nine prisoners at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay filed lawsuits in federal court in Washington arguing their detention was unlawful and unconstitutional and seeking their release.
Five cases covering nine prisoners were filed in U.S. District Court four days after the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a defeat to the Bush administration and ruled foreign terrorism suspects held at the base could use the U.S. judicial system to challenge their confinement.
Reuters
