A US soldier on trial for abusing Iraqi prisoners told a Baghdad court martial yesterday that he hooked up wires around a hooded detainee in a mock electrocution at the behest of military and civilian intelligence officials.
Staff Sergeant Ivan "Chip" Frederick, 28, pleaded guilty to five charges including assault, indecent acts, mistreatment of detainees, and dereliction of duty. He is expected to be sentenced today.
Under an arrangement secured with the prosecution, Sgt Frederick will testify at the trials of other soldiers linked to the prisoner abuse scandal in return for reducing the gravity of charges against him.
Sgt Frederick, an army reservist, is the second member of the 372nd military police to plead guilty in return for lesser charges, and the most senior of the seven unit's soldiers charged so far to stand trial.
In his testimony yesterday, he described a prison regime where policy was set by military and civilian officials involved in the interrogation of prisoners. However, Sgt Frederick played a pivotal role in the events at Abu Ghraib.
His experience as a prison guard in civilian life led his superiors to put him in charge of the night shift in the main prison block at Abu Ghraib, including the tier where the abuse was photographed.
Yesterday, he told the presiding military judge, Colonel James Pohl, that he had played a role in constructing one of the most harrowing images of the abuse that surfaced last April: the photo of a hooded detainee, standing on a box, with wires emerging from his hands.
"I took one and wrapped it around his finger. Sgt [Javal] Davis put one on his hand, Spc [Sabrina] Harman one on his toe," Sgt Frederick said.
He said military and civilian interrogators regularly asked prison guards to set conditions for detainees, and he believed that officials wanted him to scare the prisoner to help with interrogation. However, he had misgivings: "I knew it was wrong at the time because I knew it was a form of abuse."
He went on to describe his role in other episodes, including the occasion when he hit a detainee in the chest with such force that the prisoner needed medical attention, and forcing Iraqi prisoners to masturbate in front of US soldiers.
He said his command gave him little guidance on the law governing the treatment of prisoners. "I had no support when I brought things up to my command. They told me to do what [military intelligence] told me to do."