Lynndie England
Lynndie Rana England (born November 8, 1982 in Flatwoods , Kentucky ) is a former US Army member. She was a Specialist (E-4) member of the 372nd Military Police Group of the US Army and became known in connection with the Abu Ghuraib torture scandal during the Iraq war .
Life
England grew up as the daughter of a railroad worker in Fort Ashby in West Virginia in simple circumstances. There she lives in a trailer park with her parents and their son, who was born in 2004 and whose father is Charles Graner .
Suspected abuse
In May 2004, reports and photos reached the media showing that US military and intelligence officials had tortured prisoners in Abu Ghuraib prison near Baghdad. This provoked great outrage among governments and the media around the world about the behavior of US stakeholders and those responsible.
The reports also suspected England of ill-treatment of prisoners in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and was charged with prisoner ill-treatment. England then expressed itself in television interviews. There she did not deny the authenticity of the photos, but emphasized that the actions in the photos had been ordered by people of higher rank.
“England maintains that she was goaded into posing for the photographs by her then lover and more senior fellow soldier, Charles Graner. 'They said in the trial that authority figures really intimidate me. I always aim to please. '”
One photo, for example, shows England smiling in the foreground, a cigarette in the corner of her mouth, while she points to the penis of a prisoner forced to masturbate, except for a sack pulled over his head , and gives a "thumbs up". Another photo, for example, shows England with a dog leash in hand. At the other end of the line is a naked man lying on the ground.
Trial and detention
The first hearing was held on Tuesday, August 3, 2004 before the military commission at the base Fort Bragg ( North Carolina ) instead. England was represented by lawyers Rose Mary Zapor and Roy Hardy, who had set up a fundraiser to cover legal fees. The case was in a military court of the Judge Advocate General's Corps directed. England and other defendants, including the father of their child, Charles Graner , who was also convicted of war crimes and convicted in January 2005, faced more than 30 years' imprisonment if found guilty.
In a new hearing on 3 May 2005 at the military court in Fort Hood ( Texas ), she confessed to the advice of her counsel in seven out of nine counts guilty. The last two charges were then dropped. The agreement with the lawyers reduced the maximum possible sentence from 16.5 to 11 years. The court dismissed England's admission of guilt on May 4, 2005.
On September 26, 2005, England was found guilty by the Military Tribunal on six out of seven counts. Before the verdict was announced, she said she was used for his photos by her boyfriend at the time, Charles Graner. On September 27, 2005, the court determined the final sentence and sentenced England to three years in prison. The court's verdict remained under the prosecutor's demands for six years. Since her conviction, England has been employed in the kitchen of the Naval Consolidated Brig Miramar military prison near San Diego , where she was serving her sentence.
Life after imprisonment
She was released on parole in March 2007 after being detained for 521 days. Since then England has been unemployed. She was dishonorably discharged from the US Army at the end of her term in September 2008 .
In mid-June 2009, she gave an interview with the Daily Mail in which she showed no remorse and stated that she was in possession of another 800 torture photos which, if published, could be very harmful to the US Army.
See also
Web links
- Sonja Zekri: The Illusion of Female War . Southgerman newspaper
- Lynndie England on trial from May. ( Memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Netzeitung
- Lynndie England was imprisoned for three years. Mirror online
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kate Zernike: Behind Failed Abu Ghraib Plea, a Tangle of Bonds and Betrayals. The New York Times , May 10, 2005, accessed June 12, 2013 .
- ^ The Guardian (Ed.): The Guardian Weekend . January 3, 2009, p. 16 .
- ^ Michael Streck, Jan-Christoph Wiechmann: Rumsfeld knew. Interview with Lynndie England. In: Stern online. March 17, 2008, archived from the original on November 17, 2015 ; accessed on November 28, 2015 (English).
- ↑ Why the hell should I feel sorry, says girl soldier who abused Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison
- ↑ Peter Prantner: "Why should I apologize?" Österreichischer Rundfunk , January 20, 2019, archived from the original on July 16, 2012 ; accessed on July 20, 2020 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | England, Lynndie |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | England, Lynndie Rana (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American Army member implicated in the torture scandal in Iraq |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 8, 1982 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Flatwoods , Kentucky |