You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Military Judge Tosses Out Lynndie England Guilty Plea

HeadlineMay 05, 2005

A military judge has declared a mistrial in the case of Lynndie England — the female soldier photographed abusing and mocking Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib. In one photo she posed while holding a leash around the neck of a naked Iraqi man. The judge threw out her guilty plea saying he wasn’t convinced that England knew her actions were wrong. The announcement came after England’s former boss and lover — Charles Graner — told the military court he had ordered England to pose for the photographs. He said the photographs were a “legitimate training aid for other guards.” The judge then told England “If Private Graner is to be believed, he was not violating any law, so you could not be violating any law.” The judge went on to say “If you don’t want to plead guilty, don’t. But you can’t plead guilty and say you’re not guilty. … You can’t have it both ways.” England is now expected to be retried.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top