A jury found an Army dog handler guilty Tuesday of abusing detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison by terrifying them with a military dog, allegedly for his own amusement. Sgt. Michael J. Smith, 24, was found guilty of six of 13 counts. He had faced the stiffest potential sentence of any soldier charged so far in the Abu Ghraib scandal. He was charged with 13 offenses and faces up to 24 1/2 years in prison if convicted on all counts. The seven jurors - four officers and three enlisted soldiers - began deliberating Friday after four days of testimony. The government contends that Smith, of the 523rd Military Police Detachment, Fort Riley, Kan., used his dog to intimidate five prisoners for fun and competed with another canine handler trying to make detainees soil themselves.
The other dog handler, Sgt. Santos A. Cardona, 31, of Fullerton, Calif., is to stand trial May 22.
In closing arguments Friday, a prosecutor said Smith had violated two tenets of his training: treat prisoners humanely and use the minimum amount of force needed to ensure compliance. The defense argued that Smith was a good soldier who had done what he was supposed to do by having his dog bark at prisoners in a dangerous, chaotic environment where policies were so fuzzy that even the general who supervised interrogations testified he felt confused.
Smith was charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice with five counts of maltreatment of detainees, four counts of assault, two counts of conspiracy to maltreat detainees, one count of dereliction of duty and one count of indecency. Nine other soldiers have been convicted of abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib. Among them, former Cpl. Charles Graner Jr. received the stiffest sentence - 10 years in prison.