It was routine, amusing: Pfc England

In a sworn statement to investigators, Pfc. Lynndie England explained the mystery of why soldiers at Abu Ghraib took pictures of detainees m...

In a sworn statement to investigators, Pfc. Lynndie England explained the mystery of why soldiers at Abu Ghraib took pictures of detainees masturbating and piled naked with plastic sandbags over their heads by saying, 8216;8216;We thought it looked funny so pictures were taken.8217;8217;

England8217;s statement, made on May 5, narrates the graphic photographs now at the centre of the prison abuse scandal in detail and a matter-of-fact tone, describing the abuse as routine and sometimes amusing, but almost never, to her mind, out of bounds.

She explains how she put a strap around a detainee8217;s neck and forced him and others to run and crawl down a hallway for 8216;8216;approximately four to six hours;8217;8217; how one soldier would regularly throw a Nerf football at detainees with bags over their heads 8216;8216;to scare them,8217;8217; according to a copy of her statement given to The New York Times.

She described how Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II played some mind games with some of them. He would tell them to lift their legs and place a chemical light under their feet and tell them it was a knife. The chemical light would then be broken and spilled on the ground, the detainee would then be forced to crawl through it and then placed in a dark cell, this would freak out the detainee because they would glow.8217;8217;

8216;8216;Picture 000015 was basically us fooling around,8217;8217; she said, pointing to a photograph of detainees stacked naked in different positions.

Pointing to picture 000019, which shows her pointing at a detainee masturbating, she explained, 8216;8216;Staff Sgt. Frederick had removed the bags from the detainee8217;s head and motioned for them to masturbate. The detainee I8217;m pointing at didn8217;t stop so we took a picture of it.8217;8217;

England, who has been the most public face of the scandal, jauntily giving a thumbs up over a pile of naked prisoners, said the prisoners were put on leashes to intimidate them, trying to get them to confess to raping a 15-year-old Iraqi boy.

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The detainees were stripped, handcuffed, and told to lie on the floor, she said, then forced to run and crawl up and down the hallway. 8216;8216;Was there anything done to these detainees that you felt was 8216;going too far?8217;8217;8217; she was asked. 8216;8216;No,8217;8217; she replied. Asked if she thought anything was inappropriate, England replied that only the masturbation was.

Now pregnant and at Fort Bragg, N.C., England had refused to talk to investigators without a lawyer on April 30, but changed course and agreed to speak on May 5. 8212; NYT