April 28 in History
2004 – CBS News releases evidence of the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse
During the early stages of the Iraq War, United States Army and Central Intelligence Agency personnel committed a series of human rights violations against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, including physical and sexual abuse, torture, rape, sodomy, and murder. The abuses came to public attention with the publication of photographs of the abuse by CBS News on this day in 2004. The incidents received widespread condemnation both within the United States and abroad.
The administration of George W. Bush asserted the abuses at Abu Ghraib were isolated incidents and were not indicative of US policy. This assertion was disputed by humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch who stated the abuses at Abu Ghraib were part of a wider pattern of torture and brutal treatment at American overseas detention centres, including those in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo Bay.
In response to the events at Abu Ghraib, the United States Department of Defence removed 17 soldiers and officers from duty. Eleven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault and battery. They were later court-martialed, convicted, sentenced to military prison, and dishonourably discharged from service. Two soldiers, found to have perpetrated many of the worst offences at the prison, Specialist Charles Graner and PFC Lynndie England, were subject to more severe charges and received harsher sentences. Graner was convicted of assault, battery, conspiracy, maltreatment of detainees, committing indecent acts and dereliction of duty and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and loss of rank, pay and benefits, while England was convicted of conspiracy, maltreating detainees and committing an indecent act and sentenced to three years in prison. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the commanding officer of all detention facilities in Iraq, was reprimanded and demoted to the rank of colonel. Several military personnel who were accused of perpetrating or authorizing the measures, including many of higher rank, were not prosecuted.
-Wikipedia
Photo Caption – One of the many iconic photographs of the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal: Lynndie England forcing an inmate, known to the guards as ‘Gus’ to crawl and bark like a dog on a leash – US Army / Criminal Investigation Command