Shocking Photos Shows U.S. Military Abuses in
Abu Ghraib Prison

Translation to Arabic | Translation to most European Languages

Compiled from http://www.thememoryhole.org. Thanks to Global Free Press for making these screen-captures available, read the full story from CBS Associated Press, ABC News, New Yorker Magazine, Washington Post and XinHuaNet.

The Photos That Shocked the World

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

May 20 Washington Post Released Photos

Along a prison walkway, a hooded detainee seems to have collapsed with his wrists handcuffed to the railings.

 

A US soldier with his right arm and fist cocked appears prepared to strike one detainee in a pile of detainees.

 

A baton-wielding US soldier, appears to be ordering a naked detainee covered in a "brown substance" to walk a straight line with his ankles handcuffed.

 

An unidentified soldier appears to be kneeling on naked detainees in a photo from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

 

In what appears to be a hallway, a hooded detainee, seems to be handcuffed in an awkward position atop two boxes. The frame seems to show the prisoner's ankle cuffed to the door handle behind him.

 

A US Soldier in a flak jacket appears to be using both hands to restrain a dog facing an Iraqi detainee in the Abu Ghraib prison.

 

Videos Amplify Picture of Violence
By Josh White, Christian Davenport and Scott Higham
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, May 21, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43785-2004May20.html


The video begins with three soldiers huddled around a naked detainee, his thin frame backed against a wall. With a snap of his wrist, one of the soldiers slaps the man across his left cheek so hard that the prisoner's knees buckle. Another detainee, handcuffed and on his back, is dragged across the prison floor.

Then, the human pyramid begins to take shape. Soldiers force hooded and naked prisoners into crouches on the floor, one by one, side by side, a soldier pointing to where the next ones should go. The video stops. But there is more.

In a collection of hundreds of so-far-unreleased photographs and short digital videos obtained by The Washington Post, U.S. soldiers are shown physically and emotionally abusing detainees last fall in the Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad.

The new pictures and videos go beyond the photos previously released to the public in several ways, amplifying the overt violence against detainees and displaying a variety of abusive techniques previously unseen. They show a group of apparently cavalier soldiers assaulting prisoners, forcing detainees to masturbate, and standing over a naked prisoner while holding a shotgun. Some of the videos echo scenes in previously released still photographs -- such as the stacking of naked detainees -- but the video images render the incidents more vividly.

Defense Department spokesman Lawrence T. DiRita said the photographs, by description, sounded like those the Pentagon has exhibited to members of Congress and that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had warned might yet become public. "There are a series of investigations going on as a result of the disclosure of the activities depicted on photos," DiRita said last night.

The new images do not shed light on who directed the abuse, a question central to the court cases of the 372nd Military Police Company soldiers charged in the abuse scandal. But the pictures do show soldiers appearing to delight in the abuses, and they starkly reveal several detainees cowering in fear.

In one video clip, five hooded and naked detainees stand against the wall in the darkness, each masturbating, with two other hooded detainees crouched at their feet. Another shows a prisoner handcuffed to the outside of a cell door. He repeatedly slams his head into the green metal, leaving streaks of blood before he ultimately collapses at the feet of a cameraman.

In one photo, a soldier is seen cocking his fist as he holds a hooded detainee in a headlock amid a pile of several detainees. Later, he is seen kneeling atop the same pile, flexing his muscles, a broad smile on his face, posing.

Another soldier is seen in a photo brandishing a black baton as a naked prisoner -- cuffed at the ankles and smeared with a brown substance -- stands at the center of the prison hallway and holds his arms spread to either side.

Detainees recoil from unmuzzled dogs in at least four photos.

In one, a prisoner in an orange jumpsuit sits up against a wall, his hands behind his back. His fear is unmistakable as a black dog snarls at him, the animal's long, sharp teeth bared inches from his face. The dog is leashed by an unidentified U.S. soldier in a flak jacket and wool hat, the soldier using both hands to keep the dog restrained.

In another photo, the same handler has the black dog, which this time looks ready to pounce as a naked detainee shrinks away in the middle of a prison hallway, his hands defensively up in front of him. Another soldier, his hands in his pockets, watches.

The photos continue, showing an array of abuse in what appear to be different rooms, cells, showers and hallways of Abu Ghraib.

Hooded and cloaked men are handcuffed to hallway rails. A prisoner in flexible handcuffs is made to use a banana to simulate anal sex. Two naked male detainees are handcuffed to each other. A naked detainee hangs upside down from a top bunk. Another naked detainee grimaces, his face pressed against the ground, a soldier bending his arm behind his back. Blood covers the detainee's left knee, and another soldier grabs his right leg.

In one photo, a detainee is stripped to his underwear, in a hood. He is standing, crouched, on top of two boxes of MRE military meals, his arms cuffed around his left knee, his right ankle chained to a cell door.

Another detainee appears to be the victim of a cruel joke: A photo shows the man's deformed left hand emerging from an orange jumpsuit, the words "The Claw" written in English on his left breast pocket. A crude drawing of the man's hand appears on the back of his jumpsuit in another photo, with "The Claw" scrawled across his shoulder blades in black ink.

The situation inside the prison became so chaotic that U.S. soldiers turned their cameras on themselves, filming scenes of consensual sex.

Photographs and videos from Abu Ghraib were presented to Army investigators in January. They began to surface publicly last month, severely damaging the U.S. reputation in the Arab world.

"Be on notice," Rumsfeld said in a standing-room-only Senate hearing room May 8. "There are a lot more photographs and videos that exist. If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse."

Staff writer Thomas E. Ricks contributed to this report.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

 

More Torture Photos

The Washington Post / AP
Accused U.S. Military Torture Lynndie England keep detainees nude

 

The New York Times / AP
A U.S. soldier sits on an Iraqi detainee sandwiched between two stretchers at the Abu Ghraib prison.

 

The Washington Post / AP
A detainee is bound naked to a bed and wearing what appears to be women's underwear on his head.

 

The Washington Post / AP
A nude inmate is handcuffed to a cell at Abu Ghraib

 

The Washington Post / AP
U.S. military personnel keep detainees nude and pile together

 

Unidentified U.S. soldiers surround an Iraqi detainee in this photo obtained by The New Yorker said to be taken in December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq. (AP Photo/Courtesy of The New Yorker)

 

U.S. Army Spec. Charles A. Graner, Jr., and Pfc. Lynndie R. England are shown in this undated photograph at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. They are among other soldiers who face charges that include conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty toward prisoners, maltreatment, assault and indecent acts. REUTERS/COURTESY The Washington Post

New photos depict Iraqi prisoner abuses
By: XinHuaNet May 20, 2004

BEIJING, May 20 (Xinhuanet) -- ABCNEWS has obtained two new photos taken at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq showing Spc. Charles Graner and Spc. Sabrina Harman posing over the body of a detainee who was allegedly beaten to death by CIA or civilian interrogators in the prison's showers. The detainee's name was Manadel al-Jamadi.

Spc. Charles Graner of the 372nd Military Police Company smiles as he poses by the body of Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi who died in U.S. custody at Abu Ghraib prison. [Reuters/ABCNEWS]

According to testimony from Spc. Jason Kenner, obtained by ABCNEWS, the man was brought to the prison by U.S. Navy Seals in good health. Kenner said he saw extensive bruising on the detainee's body when he was brought out of the showers, dead.

Kenner says the body was packed in ice during a "battle" between CIA and military interrogators over who should dispose of the body.

The Justice Department opened an investigation into this death and four others today following a referral from the CIA.
The photos were taken by Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick , who in e-mails to his family has asked why the people responsible for the prisoner's death were not being prosecuted in the same manner that he is.

Spc. Sabrina Harman, also of the 372nd Military Police Company, gives a thumbs-up sign by the body of Iraqi detainee Manadel al-Jamadi. [Reuters/ABCNEWS]

Frederick, Graner, and Harman are among six reservists from the 372nd Military Police Company who are facing charges in the abuse scandal.

A lawyer for Graner, Guy Womack, told ABCNEWS the photo of his client represents inappropriate "gallows humor." Womack questioned why U.S. officials have not opened a criminal investigation into alleged murders at Abu Ghraib, while the investigation of his client has proceeded at a rapid pace.

A seventh member of the unit, Spc. Jeremy Sivits, pleaded guilty today to four counts for taking pictures of naked Iraqi prisoners being humiliated.

Sivits received the maximum penalty of a year in prison and a bad conduct discharge.

 

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