Beginning in 2004, human rights violations in the form of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, including torture,[1][2] rape,[1]

sodomy,[2] and homicide[3] of prisoners held in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (also known as Baghdad Correctional Facility) came to public attention. These acts were committed by military police personnel of the United States Army together with additional US governmental agencies.[4] Lynndie England holding a leash attached to a prisoner, known to the guards as "Gus", who is lying on the floor

Revealed in the Taguba Report, an initial criminal investigation by the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command had already been underway, where soldiers of the 320th Military Police Battalion had been charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice with prisoner abuse. In 2004, articles describing the abuse, including pictures showing military personnel appearing to abuse prisoners, came to public attention, when a 60 Minutes II news report (April 28) and an article by Seymour M. Hersh in The New Yorker magazine (posted online on April 30 and published days later in the May 10 issue) reported the story.[5]

The United States Department of Defense removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, and eleven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault and battery. Between May 2004 and March 2006, eleven soldiers were convicted in courts martial, sentenced to military prison, and dishonorably discharged from service. Two soldiers, Specialist Charles Graner, and his former fiance, Specialist Lynndie England, were sentenced to ten years and three years in prison, respectively, in trials ending on January 14, 2005 and September 26, 2005. The commanding officer of all Iraq detention facilities, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, was reprimanded for dereliction of duty and then demoted to the rank of Colonel on May 5, 2005. Col. Karpinski has denied knowledge of the abuses, claiming that the interrogations were authorized by her superiors and performed by subcontractors, and that she was not even allowed entry into the interrogation rooms.

The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib was in part the reason that on April 12, 2006, the United States Army activated the 201st Military Intelligence Battalion, the first of four joint interrogation battalions.[6] The prisoner Manadel al-Jamadi died in Abu Ghraib prison after being interrogated and tortured by a CIA officer and a private contractor. The torture included physical violence and strappado hanging, whereby the victim is hung from the wrists with the hands tied behind the back. His death has been labeled a homicide by the US military,[7] but neither of the two men who caused his death have been charged. The private contractor was granted qualified immunity.[8] [edit] Raping of prisoners

Major General Antonio Taguba has stated that there is photographic evidence of rape being carried out at Abu Ghraib.[9] An Iraqi teenage boy was raped by a uniformed man while photos of it were taken by a female US military police officer.[10] The alleged rapist was identified by a witness as an AmericanEgyptian who worked as a translator, and who is now the subject of a civil court case in the US.[9] Another photo shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner.[9] Other photos show sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube, and a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.[9] Taguba has supported President Obama's decision not to release the photos, stating, "These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency."[9]

In other alleged cases, female inmates were said to be raped by soldiers.[11] In one reported case, senior US officials admitted rape had taken place at Abu Ghraib. According to Donald Rumsfeld, many more pictures and videotapes of the abuse at Abu Ghraib exist. Photos and videos were revealed by the Pentagon to lawmakers in a private viewing on 12 May 2004. Lawmakers disagreed over whether the additional photos were worse than those already released, with Senator Ron Wyden saying the new pictures were "significantly worse than anything that I had anticipated [...] Take the worst case and multiply it several times over." while Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher said the pictures were "not dramatically different". It was speculated that they depict dogs snarling at cowering prisoners, women forced to expose their breasts, hooded prisoners being forced to masturbate, and violent sexual acts.[19]

A Department of Defense official said that most of the additional photos were pornography involving only US soldiers, and that most did not show abuse of prisoners.[20] United States soldier Spc. Graner appears to be punching, or pretending to punch, handcuffed Iraqi prisoners

The New York Times, in a report on January 12, 2005,[21] reported testimony suggesting that the following events had taken place at Abu Ghraib:

Urinating on detainees Jumping on detainee's leg (a limb already wounded by gunfire) with such force that it could not thereafter heal properly

Continuing by pounding detainee's wounded leg with collapsible metal baton Pouring phosphoric acid on detainees Sodomization of detainees with a baton Tying ropes to the detainees' legs or penises and dragging them across the floor.

SPC England and SPC Graner posing behind a pyramid of naked Iraqi prisoners, giving the "thumbs up" sign

In her video diary, a prison guard said that prisoners were shot for minor misbehavior, and claimed to have had venomous snakes bite prisoners, sometimes resulting in their deaths. By her own admission, that guard was "in trouble" for having thrown rocks at the detainees.[22] Hashem Muhsen, one of the naked men in the human pyramid photo, said they were also made to crawl around the floor naked and that U.S. soldiers rode them like donkeys. After being released in January 2004, Muhsen became an Iraqi police officer.[23]

It was discovered that one prisoner, Manadel al-Jamadi, died as a result of abuse, a death that was ruled a homicide by the military.[24]

One detainee claimed he was sodomized. The Taguba Report found the claim ("Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick") to be credible They said we will make you wish to die and it will not happen [...] They stripped me naked. One of them told me he would rape me. He drew a picture of a woman to my back and made me stand in shameful position holding my buttocks. Ameen Saeed Al-Sheik, detainee No. 151362, The Convention Against Torture defines torture in the following terms:

Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him ... information or a confession, punishing him for an act he ... has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him. United Nations Convention Against Torture, (Article 1)

The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in its confidential February 2004 report to the Coalition Forces that its investigations had documented "serious violations of International Humanitarian Law relating to the conditions of treatment of the persons deprived of their liberty held by the CF in Iraq. In particular, it establishes that persons deprived of their liberty face the risk of being subjected to a process of physical and psychological coercion, in some cases tantamount to torture, in the early stages of the internment process." The main violations which were described in the ICRC report included:

Brutality against protected persons upon capture and initial custody, sometimes causing death or serious injury. Absence of notification of arrest of persons deprived of their liberty to their families causing distress among persons deprived of their liberty and their families. Physical or psychological coercion during interrogation to secure information. Prolonged solitary confinement in cells devoid of daylight. Excessive and disproportionate use of force against persons deprived of their liberty resulting in death or injury during their period of internment.[80]

Some legal experts have said that the United States could be obligated to try some of its soldiers for war crimes.[81] Under the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions, prisoners of war and civilians detained in a war may not be treated in a degrading manner, and violation of that section is a "grave breach". In a November 5, 2003 report on prisons in Iraq, the Army's provost marshal, Maj. Gen. Donald J. Ryder, stated that the conditions under which prisoners were held sometimes violated the Geneva Conventions.[citation needed]

Also, legal analysts point to the fact that Alberto Gonzales and others argued that detainees should be considered "unlawful combatants" and as such not protected by the Geneva Conventions in multiple memoranda, known today as the "torture memos," regarding these perceived legal gray areas.[82] Gonzales' observed at the time that denying coverage under the Geneva Conventions "substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act" suggesting, at the least, an awareness by those involved in crafting policies in this area that US officials are involved in acts that could be seen to be war crimes.[83][84][85][86] The US Supreme Court challenged the practice of ignoring the Geneva Conventions in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, in which it ruled that Common Article Three of

the Geneva Conventions applies to all detainees in the War on Terror and that the Military Tribunals used to try these suspects were in violation of US and international law.[87]

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 is seen as an amnesty law for crimes committed in the War on Terror by retroactively rewriting the War Crimes Act[88] and by abolishing habeas corpus, effectively making it impossible for detainees to challenge crimes committed against them.[89][90][91][92][93] Because of this on November 14, 2006, legal proceedings invoking universal jurisdiction were started in Germany against Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, George Tenet and others for their alleged involvement of prisoner abuse under the command responsibility.[94][95][96] However, on 27 April 2007, the German federal prosecutor announced the government would not pursue charges against Rumsfeld and the 11 other U.S. officials, stating the accusations did not apply to German law, in part because there was insufficient evidence that the alleged acts occurred on German soil, nor did the accused live in Germany.[97]

Some of the accused soldiers' families or attorneys have already made clear an intention to argue that the practices at Abu Ghraib were directed by higher-ranking military officers or by the Central Intelligence Agency.[citation needed] Under the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal, this "defense of superior orders" is not a defense for war crimes, although it might influence a sentencing authority to lessen the penalty. Under U.S. law, the War Crimes Act of 1996 makes it a federal crime to violate certain provisions of the Geneva Conventions. The Act punishes any American, military or civilian, who commits a "grave breach" of the Geneva Conventions. A grave breach, as defined by the Geneva Conventions, includes the deliberate "killing, torture or inhuman treatment" of detainees. Violations of the War Crimes Act that result in death carry the death penalty.