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Commander present when prisoner died, captain testifies

IRAQ: Top commander also may have tried to conceal details of prisoner's death.

BY JACKIE SPINNER

WASHINGTON POST


BAGHDAD, Iraq - The company commander of the U.S. soldiers charged with abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison testified Thursday that the top military intelligence commander at the prison was present the night a prisoner died during an interrogation and that efforts were made to conceal the details of his death.

Capt. Donald Reese, commander of the 372nd Military Police Company, said he was summoned one night in November to a shower room in a cellblock at the prison, where he discovered the body of a bloodied detainee on the floor. A group of intelligence personnel was standing around the body, discussing what to do, he said. Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of military intelligence at the prison, was among those present, Reese said.

Reese said an Army colonel named Jordan sent a soldier to the prison mess hall for ice to preserve the body overnight. Lt. Col. Steven Jordan was head of the interrogation center at the prison, but it was unclear whether he was the officer to whom Reese referred.

No medics were called, Reese said, and the prisoner's identification was never recorded.

Reese testified that he heard Pappas say at one point, "I'm not going down for this alone."

An autopsy the next day determined the man's death was caused by a blood clot resulting from a blow to the head, Reese said, and the body subsequently was hooked up to an intravenous drip as if the prisoner was alive and taken out of the prison, Reese recalled. There is no known record of what happened to the body after that.

Reese's testimony came during the first day of an investigative hearing for Spc. Sabrina Harman, one of seven Army reservists from the 372nd charged with abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib late last year.

During investigations of alleged abuse at Abu Ghraib, statements by other witnesses have described the death of the prisoner, and the corpse appears in photographs documenting abuse at the prison. But no testimony or evidence had indicated Pappas was in the shower room the night the detainee died.

Meanwhile, a newspaper reported that the military plans to charge two intelligence soldiers in the suffocation death of an Iraqi general during an interrogation last fall.

Charges of negligent homicide and involuntary manslaughter will be filed against Chief Warrant Officers Lewis Welshofer and Jeff Williams, the Denver Post reported in Thursday editions, citing a Pentagon document obtained by the newspaper.

Welshofer was not at home Thursday, and his wife declined comment except to say he has a military lawyer. Fort Carson spokesman Lt. Justin Journeay confirmed an investigation was under way but provided no details.

Williams did not immediately return calls seeking comment Thursday. The Judge Advocate General's Office also did not return calls.

Welshofer, a member of the 66th Military Intelligence Group, has said he did nothing wrong. He is accused of sitting on the chest of Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush and covering his mouth while the air force commander was wrapped in a sleeping bag, according to the document.

Mowhoush, 57, died during interrogation Nov. 26 at Qaim, Iraq. His death certificate lists homicide as the cause. The military has said Mowhoush died from asphyxiation because of smothering and chest compression.

http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/9009637.htm