Reservist Was Coerced, Lawyers Say (Pfc. Lynndie R. England)

Baltimore Sun ^ | December 2, 2004 | Gail Gibson

[Former Military Chick]

FORT BRAGG, N.C. - Attorneys for Pfc. Lynndie R. England told a military judge yesterday that the young Army reservist was sleep-deprived and coerced when she told investigators that Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad had been humiliated and photographed "just for fun."

Defense attorneys want three incriminating statements England made about the abuses thrown out by the presiding judge, Col. Stephen R. Henley, before she stands trial in January in military court. Her lawyers also want to exclude the now-infamous photographs that show England flashing a thumbs-up sign near naked Iraqis and holding a leash tied to the neck of a nude detainee.

At a pretrial hearing yesterday, Army investigators said England was polite and cooperative in the earliest stages of the inquiry, even during an initial interview when she was roused from bed just after 2 a.m. and questioned through the night about the abuses that had been reported hours earlier by a fellow soldier from the 372nd Military Police Company, based in Western Maryland.

"I didn't notice any fear," said Special Agent Paul Arthur, an investigator with the Army's Criminal Investigation Command who first interviewed England last January. "I believe she was pretty much cooperative. ... She talked about the incidents, and then put it in writing in her own words."

Those words could haunt England at her court-martial next month, in which she could be sentenced to 38 years in prison if convicted on 19 charges involving detainee abuses and other indecent acts. At a hearing last summer, Arthur testified that England told him that night that the photos were taken by fellow soldiers who were just "joking around, having some fun, during the night shift."

[Former Military Chick]

Anyone have a small violin?

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