FORT HOOD, Texas - A US Army reservist convicted of attaching wires to an Iraqi prisoner in a photographed scene that outraged the international community was sentenced on Tuesday to six months in prison.
A military jury deciding the fate of Sabrina Harman, 27, at the nation's largest Army base recommended six-months of confinement, one of the lightest punishments handed down in the Abu Ghraib cases. She had faced a maximum of five and a half years and the prosecution had sought a three-year sentence.
Harman will also receive a bad conduct discharge. "I think she was extremely relieved," said her civilian attorney Frank Spinner. "To have a jury come back and say six months, that's pretty significant."
| Should have gotten a dishonorable discharge, but life for her is over as she knows it. This will follow her forever. |
The jury found Harman guilty on Monday on six of seven abuse-related charges, including a photographed incident in which she placed wires on a hooded Iraqi prisoner and said he would be electrocuted if he stepped off the box he stood on.
"I wish to apologize to any and all detainees," Harman told a military courtroom earlier. "I failed my duties. I failed my mission. Not only did I let down the people in Iraq, I let down every single soldier that serves today."
"I take full responsibility for my actions," she said. "The decisions I made were mine and mine alone."
| That's better, soldier, but you should have known better before you did it. |
One of three women implicated in the Abu Ghraib scandal, Harman appeared in a notorious photo showing a naked pyramid of Iraqis accused of rioting in a prison yard. She wrote "rapeist" on one prisoner's leg before he was forced to pile into the pyramid. The photographs, made public just over a year ago, badly damaged America's reputation abroad.
Earlier, her partner told the military panel that Harman is a gentle woman. "What you see out there is not the true Sabrina Harman," Kelly Bryant, said in testimony that brought Harman to tears. "She's the type of person who wouldn't allow you to step on an ant or kill a spider." Bryant said Harman, who worked at a pizza parlor before the war, had wanted to adopt an Iraqi boy. "She's generous, gentle, caring, unselfish," she said.
Attorney Spinner has said the government offered a plea deal last year for Harman with a two-year sentence. More recently, a prosecution source said, she was offered a one-year plea deal that she also turned down. Harman's gamble to go to trial paid off and she was also credited with 51 days already served, plus 20 days for good behavior.
Six other soldiers have reached plea deals, with all except Graner's new wife, Megan Ambuhl, receiving prison time.
| I'm at a loss: just what do women see in that fellow? |
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