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Sworn Guards' Testimony of Prisoner Abuse Gets Grisly

The LA Times reports on the sworn testimony of the prison guards at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. More grisly details have emerged.

First, the latest from SPC Lynndie England:

England told investigators that guards forced detainees to crawl on their hands and knees on broken glass, threw a nerf football at handcuffed prisoners and forced male detainees to wear women's "maxi pads."

She also said Graner, with whom she is now pregnant, applied needle and thread to prisoners after beating them. "Cpl. Graner would personally stitch up detainees if the wound weren't too bad," she said. "He would take pictures of his work. One particular incident Cpl. Graner ran a former Iraqi general into a wall and split his lip. Cpl. Graner stitched up his lip."

Next, remember this photo of a dead Iraqi?

Here's what happened to him:

When CIA officers brought the Iraqi detainee to Abu Ghraib prison, his head was covered with an empty sandbag and Army guards were ordered to take him directly to a shower room that served as a makeshift interrogation center at the overcrowded, shell-damaged facility outside Baghdad. An hour later, amid intensive questioning by intelligence officers, the prisoner collapsed and died. Only then did interrogators remove the hood to reveal severe head wounds that had never been treated.

From the sworn testimony of Spc. Jason A. Kenner from a closed hearing last month against Spc. Jamal Davis:

"He wasn't dead at first," said Spc. Jason A. Kenner of the nameless detainee, explaining that guards were told not to remove the prisoner's hood when they took him to the shower room. "We didn't know how much he was injured. He went into the showers for interrogation, and about an hour later he died on them. I was sent to find out what was going on. Later that day, they decided to put him on ice. ..."

"After he passed, the sandbag was removed and I saw that he was severely beaten on his face," Kenner testified. "At the time, they would interrogate people in the shower rooms. He was shackled to the wall. ... The shower room was just used because there was no other space available."

In their testimony, Kenner and [another guard Spc. Bruce] Brown agreed that the CIA brought the prisoner to Abu Ghraib and ordered guards to take him to the interrogation facility without removing the hood. They disagreed on who was involved in the subsequent questioning: Kenner said it was the CIA alone while Brown said the CIA and military intelligence officers worked together.

< Bush's Uncle is Head of Bank Fined in Money Laundering Probe | First Abu Ghraib Iraqi Prisoner Sues U.S. for Damages >
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