5TH Abu Ghraib officer's verdict hangs in the balance (Roundup)

By Tony Czuczka Aug 27, 2007, 22:54 GMT

Fort Meade, Maryland - The court-martial of the only US officer charged over the abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison delivered no immediate verdict Monday as jurors deliberated for more than four hours without reaching a decision.

A panel of 10 higher-ranking officers is weighing charges of mistreatment and cruelty, disobeying orders and dereliction of duty against US Army Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, 51, who headed the Abu Ghraib interrogation centre in the fall of 2003.

Jury deliberations were set to continue Tuesday.

Jordan could face up to eight-and-a-half years in prison, a fine and dismissal from the Army. He denies wrongdoing and claims the Army made him a scapegoat for the scandal.

During Monday's closing arguments, prosecutors alleged that his lack of leadership encouraged the notorious rampages by US soldiers at the prison outside Baghdad. He neglected to stop alleged abuses during a roundup of Iraqi prison guards and failed to train and supervise soldiers, prosecutors alleged.

'He created the atmosphere that led to the abuse of Iraqi military intelligence detainees and Iraqi correctional officers,' prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel John Tracy told the court.

Jordan headed the interrogation site at the prison outside Baghdad during the time when US military police soldiers on night duty took infamous pictures of naked detainees being mistreated, sexually humiliated and threatened with dogs.

He is not charged specifically for those abuses, but over a November 2003 incident when US troops stripped and lined up Iraqi guards for a search after a detainee smuggled weapons into his cell. Dogs allegedly were used to control the Iraqis.

Prosecutors argue that the actions happened without the required authorization from the top US commander in Iraq and Jordan, as the senior officer at the scene, should have stopped them.

Jordan's lawyers made a final plea for his innocence before the case went to the jury at a military base north of Washington.

'It is tempting to say some officer must be held accountable - but not this officer,' defence lawyer Major Kris Poppe told the panel of seven male and three female soldiers in his closing statement Monday.

The defence portrayed Jordan as a soldier's advocate intent on improving living conditions for his troops and on protecting the sprawling prison against mortar and sniper fire from insurgents.

His aim was to ensure that Abu Ghraib's military intelligence soldiers and military police could do their work, not to personally supervise interrogations, Poppe said.

In addition, the defence argued that Jordan effectively had no command authority over the military intelligence and military police who carried out the actual interrogations at Abu Ghraib

But the potentially most severe charge is disobeying orders. In 2004, Jordan allegedly ignored a general's order not to communicate with other soldiers about an internal investigation into the Abu Ghraib abuses.

Evidence presented in court indicated that he e-mailed several soldiers he knew from Abu Ghraib, asking whether they believed he was connected to any abuses.

Eleven lower-ranking US soldiers were convicted of abuses at Abu Ghraib, but Jordan is the first - and likely the last - officer to be charged.

The scandal erupted when the photos became public in 2004, inflaming anti-Americanism in the Middle East, causing worldwide outrage and damaging US credibility.