The first of seven US soldiers charged with abusing detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison will be court martialed later this month in a public trial, the US military said on Sunday.
Specialist Jeremy Sivits, 24, a member of the 800th Military Police Brigade, is charged with conspiracy to maltreat detainees; dereliction of duty for failing to protect detainees from abuse, cruelty and maltreatment; and maltreatment of detainees, the Department of Defence said in a statement.
A military source said Sivits was alleged to have taken many of the pictures of abuse at Abu Ghraib, pictures that show soldiers piling naked and hooded detainees on top of one another or posing them to simulate sex acts. New pictures emerged on Sunday of dogs apparently menacing a naked detainee.
"Jeremy is not the kind of kid to do something like this," said Del Biller, mayor of the small town of Hyndman, Pennsylvania, where Sivits lived. "I can't see him doing this unless he was ordered to do it."
The images were revealed to the public by US television last week and have caused a furore around the world, provoking alarm at the highest levels of the US administration.
The court martial will begin on May 19 in Baghdad and will be held in public, possibly at a convention centre built by Saddam Hussein that sits inside the "Green Zone", the heavily protected headquarters of the US-led coalition.
"Court martials are open to the public," military spokesman Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told reporters in Baghdad.
"It's our desire to make the upcoming courts martial as accessible as possible," he said.
The charges carry a maximum sentence of one year's imprisonment, a reduction in grade to private, the docking of two-thirds pay and allowances for a year and a fine. The court can also hand down a bad conduct discharge from the military.
A US military lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Sivits would be able to choose whether he is tried in front of a single military judge or a three-person panel of senior military officers.
He will have access to a military trial defence attorney and may also retain a civilian attorney. To be convicted, the defendant must be found guilty "beyond reasonable doubt", as in civilian criminal cases in US federal courts.
It is not the first court martial since US-led forces invaded Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Sivits' father, Daniel Sivits, defended his son earlier this week saying he was not deployed to Iraq as a military policeman and had no training for the role he was told to perform.
"Why was a mechanic allowed to handle prisoners?" Daniel Sivits said to the Baltimore Sun newspaper. "Where was their training? Who was their supervisor? Where was the leadership?"
The abuse scandal has come at an awkward time for the US administration as it prepares to hand sovereignty over to an Iraqi government on June 30 even as the military is trying to put down a militia uprising across much of southern Iraq.
So far seven soldiers face criminal charges in connection with the abuse, and a further seven commissioned and non-commissioned officers have received written reprimands, a measure that can effectively end military careers.
The charges made so far relate to abuses allegedly carried out in October and November last year on around 20 inmates at Abu Ghraib, a jail that was notorious for torture and execution under Saddam and is now notorious among Iraqis once again.
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