The seven guards charged with abuses at Abu Ghraib prison were a rogue band ‘‘just having some fun with the prisoners’’ and not carrying out orders to ‘‘soften up’’ detainees for interrogation, according to Army investigators.The investigators, whose testimony is contained in court-martial records obtained on Wednesday by The Los Angeles Times, testified at a secret hearing in Baghdad, that they found ‘‘absolutely no evidence’’ that the abuses were authorised by officers in the Army chain of command. At the same time, the documents show, a member of the military intelligence battalion operating at the prison testified that interrogators sometimes went too far in trying to extract information from detainees. It is the first known instance of a member of an intelligence unit testifying about misconduct by interrogators.The intelligence specialist, Sgt. Samuel Jefferson Provance III, said, for example, that a military interrogator he identified as Spc. Armin John Cruz often played rough with detainees when they were taken to special booths to be interviewed. ‘‘Spc. Cruz was known to bang on the table, yell, scream, and maybe assaulted detainees during interrogations in the booth,’’ Provance testified. ‘‘This was not to be discussed. It was kept ‘hush hush’ by the individual interrogators.’’ It was unclear if Cruz has been disciplined.The new information came as officials announced two more of the seven Abu Ghraib guards will stand trial at courts-martial. One of them, Staff Sgt. Ivan L. ‘‘Chip’’ Frederick II, was accused of taking photographs of mistreatment that have drawn outrage worldwide. And Sgt. Javal S. Davis was charged with taking part in an incident in which detainees were forced into a pile on the prison floor.Special Agent Tyler Pieron of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command identified the ringleaders as Cpl. Charles Graner and Frederick and Davis. He said the three, along with four others, abused prisoners in the middle of the night ‘‘after the chain of command shifts had gone home’’. They were caught after another guard saw photographs of the abuse and turned them in because he ‘‘wanted the abuse to stop,’’ Pieron is quoted as saying.At the same hearing, Provance described an incident in which Spc. Luciana Spencer, another interrogator, ‘‘made a detainee walk naked in front of other detainees.’’ He said she was relieved from her assignment. And Provnce said that Spc. Hanna Slagel told him that guards ‘‘made male detainees wear women’s panties, and if they cooperated, some would get an extra blanket.’’ — (LAT-WP)
