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An unexpectedly light sentence for an Army interrogator who once faced life in prison for the death of an Iraqi general could tarnish the government and hurt human-rights efforts around the globe, critics said. Prosecutors said during Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr.'s court-martial that his interrogation of Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush "could fairly be described as torture" and had stained the military's reputation. During the trial, testimony showed he stuffed Mowhoush in a sleeping bag and straddled his chest. If the tables were turned and an American general had suffered the same fate from interrogators in an enemy's...

DENVER (AP) - An unexpectedly light sentence for an Army interrogator who once faced life in prison for the death of an Iraqi general could tarnish the government and hurt human-rights efforts around the globe, critics said. Prosecutors said during Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr.'s court-martial that his interrogation of Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush "could fairly be described as torture" and had stained the military's reputation. During the trial, testimony showed he stuffed Mowhoush in a sleeping bag and straddled his chest. If the tables were turned and an American general had suffered the same fate from interrogators...

FORT CARSON, Colo. (Jan. 24) - A military jury recommended a simple reprimand Monday for an Army officer who killed an Iraqi general by stuffing him headfirst into a sleeping bag and sitting on his chest during an interrogation. As soldiers applauded in the courtroom, Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. hugged his wife after hearing the surprisingly light sentence, which will be reviewed by Fort Carson's commander, Maj. Gen. Robert W. Mixon. The commander cannot order a harsher sentence, defense attorney Frank Spinner said. Welshofer, 43, was charged with murder, but was convicted over the weekend of negligent homicide...

FORT CARSON, Colo. (AP) - Fighting back tears, an Army interrogator convicted of killing an Iraqi general by stuffing him headfirst into a sleeping bag and sitting on his chest apologized Monday and asked the military jury not to separate him from his wife and children by sending him to prison. "I deeply apologize if my actions tarnished the soldiers serving in Iraq," Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. said at his sentencing hearing. Welshofer, 43, was convicted Saturday of negligent homicide and negligent dereliction of duty. Prosecutors said he put a sleeping bag over the head of Iraqi Maj....

By Nicholas Riccardi, Times Staff Writer FT. CARSON, Colo. -- A military jury late Saturday night convicted an Army interrogator of negligent homicide in the death an Iraqi general who had been stuffed face-first in a sleeping bag. After seven hours of deliberations the six-member military panel opted not to convict Chief Warrant Officer Lewis E. Welshofer Jr. of murder, which would have carried a life sentence. Instead, the panel ruled that the death was a negligent homicide, a finding that caries a maximum three-year term in a military prison. The panel also found Welshofer guilty of dereliction of duty....

Two conflicting pictures have emerged of the Army officer charged with killing an Iraqi general: A ruthless man flouting Army interrogation rules, and an interrogator pressured to help defeat a growing insurgency. Prosecutors say Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. abused his subjects by slapping them, allowing them to be severely beaten and slamming them to the ground, all to gain very little useful information. But Welshofer's defense attorney offered a portrait of a man who allowed only himself and one other person to use dangerous techniques and who showed compassion to his subject by allowing him a visit with...

DENVER (AP) - An Army officer is scheduled to go on trial today in the grisly suffocation death of an Iraqi general amid speculation his lawyer will argue the general was already weakened by a severe beating at the hands of a group linked to the CIA. Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr is charged with murder in the 2003 death of Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush. Prosecution documents say Mowhoush had been placed headfirst in a sleeping bag and bound during interrogation, and that he died with one officer sitting on him. The documents say an electrical cord may...