Lynndie England Faces Sentencing

FORT HOOD, Texas - Guards at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison took orders from military intelligence officers, the ringleader of the abuse scandal testified on Tuesday at the sentencing hearing of Lynndie England.

England, 22, was convicted on Monday of abuse such as holding a leash to a naked Iraqi prisoner's neck when she was a U.S. Army private working as a guard at the prison.

Her former lover Charles Graner, who is serving a 10-year sentence for abuses at the prison outside Baghdad, testified as a witness for England, who faces up to nine years in prison.

"Sir, I nearly beat a military intelligence detainee to death with military intelligence there," Graner, 37, told the court. "We treated each military detainee specifically on how the handler wanted."

Defense lawyers have sought to show that England was overly compliant to authority and Graner in particular. About England, Graner said: "She's young, she's suggestible."

England was found guilty on six counts Monday, all which include the language of "wrongfully posing for a photograph."

The publication of these images early in 2004 caused major damage to America's image abroad.

The prosecution had agreed to a plea deal in May in which England would serve no more than 30 months in confinement. The judge negated the deal after hearing testimony from Graner that suggested England may not have been guilty.

England's case was the latest in prosecution or plea bargain of low-level soldiers who served at Abu Ghraib.

The military has also reprimanded a small number of higher-ranking officers but none has faced criminal charges. At least one Army captain has said the abuse often occurred under orders or with the consent of superior officers.

The Army captain, along with two sergeants, recounted in a Human Rights Watch report Friday how Iraqi inmates near Falluja were beaten with a baseball bat, stacked clothed in pyramids, deprived of food and water and put in painful positions until they fainted.

During his January trial, Graner, the father of England's 11-month-old baby, tried to portray his actions at Abu Ghraib, which included stacking naked prisoners into a pyramid, as on the behalf of military intelligence. At that trial, the judge excluded testimony exploring the links between guards such as Graner and military intelligence.

Witnesses at England's and other Abu Ghraib trials have testified that prisoners in some of the most notorious abuse photographs such as the human pyramid and the leash incident were common criminals without any intelligence value.