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Graner's E-Mails Go to Jury in Abuse Trial

Closing arguments were this morning in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse trial of Charles Graner. The jury received copies of e-mails Graner sent to family and friends, joking about the pain he inflicted:

[Prosecutor] Graveline used some of Graner's own e-mails as evidence of how much he enjoyed the pain he inflicted on detainees. In one e-mail, he described beating on prisoners as "a good upper-body workout, but hard on the hands." The e-mail messages were given to jurors Tuesday. The New York Times, which said it got them from a person close to the defense, reported that they were sent to Graner's family and friends, including his young children.

"The guys give me hell for not getting any pictures while I was fighting this guy," said the message, titled "just another dull night at work," with the photograph of the howling, bound, bleeding detainee, according to the Times. The paper also reported that Graner responded to an e-mail message about a Take Your Children to Work Day event, "how about send a bastard to hell day?" attaching a photograph of a detainee's head bloodied beyond recognition.

A photo of him stitched a detainee's wound had the note, "Things may have gotten a bit bad when we were asking him a couple of questions. O well," and a message with a similar photo read, "Not only was I the healer, I was the hurter. O well life goes on," the Times reported.

None of this fazed Graner's attorney, Guy Womack, who argued:

Womack said there was nothing wrong with stripping what the prisoners, whom he termed "hardened terrorists," and stacking them into a pyramid to control them. "They did it in a safe manner so nobody would get hurt ... It was an ingenuous move," he said. "If there was anything wrong, it was that they took a picture and they were smiling."

We'll see how long the jury stays out.

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