3 Witnesses at Iraq Abuse Hearing Refused to Testify (def witness "unavail

3 Witnesses at Iraq Abuse Hearing Refused to Testify

http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/egx40H5DEY0G2B0Fy4t0Ax

By Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Three key witnesses, including a senior officer in charge of interrogations, refused to testify during a secret hearing against an alleged ringleader of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal on the grounds that they might incriminate themselves.

The witnesses appeared April 26 at a preliminary hearing behind closed doors for Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., who has been identified in court-martial documents as the leader of a band of military police guards who humiliated and abused Iraqi detainees and compiled a bizarre photographic record of their activities. The prospective witnesses' refusal to testify is described in court-martial documents obtained by The Times on Tuesday.

That all of the prospective witnesses called up by prosecutors invoked the military equivalent of the 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination indicates that key players in the abuse scandal may be closing ranks to save themselves and one another.<snip>

When the Graner hearing convened in Iraq, the first government witness to refuse to testify was Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, who as director of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at the prison oversaw the military intelligence operations.<snip>

Army Spc. Joseph Darby, who was disgusted by the abuse photos and first alerted authorities, was called as a defense witness, but the military judge presiding over the April hearing in Baghdad said the whistle-blower was "unavailable."