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A 24-year-old U.S. military policeman will be the first soldier to face a court-martial in connection with the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, the military said Sunday.
Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits of Hyndman, Pa., a member of the 372nd Military Police Company, will stand trial in Baghdad on May 19, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said. The proceedings will be open to media coverage.
Sivits is believed to have taken some of the photos that triggered the worldwide scandal over America's treatment of Iraqi prisoners. His father, Daniel Sivits, said last month that his son "was told to take a picture and he did what he was told."
An attorney for an Army reservist shown in photographs smiling and gesturing at naked Iraqi prisoners said Monday that the "20-year-old farm girl from West Virginia" is taking the fall for military shortcomings that include a lack of troops.
Pfc. Lynndie R. England, 21, of Fort Ashby, W.Va., was charged Friday with mistreating prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in a scandal that has drawn worldwide outrage.
Six other soldiers from the 372nd Military Police Company were charged earlier and one of them, Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits of Hyndman, Pa., will face a court-martial in Baghdad on May 19.
One of England's Denver-based attorneys, Giorgio Ra'Shadd, said the military was so short of troops in Iraq that untrained people were being used as guards.
"Because there was a shortage of personnel the commander on the scene took people who had no idea how to be MPs and cut them off at the neck from their leadership," he said. "That is crazy."
He said his client was being offered up as a scapegoat for the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners.
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