Justice is being done at last, or is it just a showoff to cover up even further monstrous injustice?
The lone US officer who had faced a trial over the cruelty at the notorious Abu Ghraib jail of Baghdad was reportedly found guilty yesterday. It is quite interesting that he was found guilty only of disobeying an order. He was exonerated of three other charges, those related to abusing the inmates and negligence of his duty.
The scandal regarding Abu Ghraib surfaced in 2004 after photographs were circulated around the globe containing images of nude Iraqi prisoners being tortured by smirking US troops.
Lt Col Steven Jordan, aged 51, is the solitary US officer who has been indicted in the Abu Ghraib scandal. He has been given a sentence of up to five years in jail for defying an order not to talk about the outrage in Abu Ghraib with others. Jordan had apparently sent two emails talking about the scandal to a co-worker in 2004. The verdict by the jury consisting of a general and nine colonels was announced after of a court martial at the Fort Meade military base.
Jordan, who was an army reservist, had pleaded not guilty to all the four charges. Defense lawyers argued that he had not been in attendance when the maltreatment had taken place in Abu Ghraib. They also argued that he was not directly in authority over the questioning that occurred in Abu Ghraib. The prosecution had wanted to disagree on the point that Jordan had promoted the ambiance which would allow such cruelty to occur in the prison as he was in control of the questioning division.
His lawyer said -
It is tempting to say that some officer must be held responsible. But not this officer. You cannot stop somebody from doing something criminal if you’re not there and you don’t know about it.
As it seems to be, the conviction of Jordan along with the verdict points towards the fact that the US authorities are more concerned about the Abu Ghraib scandal reaching public knowledge, rather than the scandal itself. None of the officers involved in the cruelty has been convicted or punished for the actual cruelty. The first officer to be convicted has been found guilty of revealing information rather than torturing inmates.
Will it help for the US to cover up for its own misdeeds? The way it is being done is quite revealing in itself indeed.
Image Credit: Connecticut Blog
Via: Telegraph UK
