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Charges: Officer aided enemy

The Army soldier is accused of loaning a phone.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 27, 2007

BAGHDAD - A U.S. officer has been accused of aiding the enemy - a charge that can carry the death sentence - for allegedly providing an unmonitored cell phone to detainees while he commanded an MP detachment at the jail that held Saddam Hussein, the military said Thursday.

Army Lt. Col. William Steele faces nine charges, including fraternizing with a prisoner's daughter, storing and marking classified material, maintaining an inappropriate relationship with an interpreter and possessing pornographic videos.

The rare charges are among the most serious levied against a senior American officer in Iraq, but are the latest in a series of embarrassments for the U.S. military detention system here.

The alleged incidents occurred from October 2005 to this February, starting when Steele was commander of the 451st Military Police Detachment at Camp Cropper on the western outskirts of Baghdad and in his later post as a senior patrol officer at nearby Camp Victory, the main U.S. military base.

Steele was detained in March and is being held in Kuwait pending an Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury hearing, officials said. His age and hometown were not released.

The U.S. military command declined to comment on the case but stressed nothing had been proven.

The most serious charge, aiding the enemy, was tied to Steele's time at the jail at Camp Cropper, an expansive prison near Baghdad International Airport that held Hussein before he was executed.

Camp Cropper was meant to signify reform. A new, $60-million jail opened at the base in August and many inmates were transferred there from Abu Ghraib prison, which was closed and transferred to Iraqi control after gaining notoriety for widely publicized photographs of American guards and interrogators abusing detainees. It now holds about 3,000 people.

Military officials declined to give details about the charge, including who used the phone and how.

Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said the charge of aiding the enemy "could cover a multitude of sins," but he said a prosecutor would be hard-pressed to get a death sentence without showing "evidence that the purpose was really to aid the enemy and hurt our side."

However, he added, Steele could be found guilty regardless of his intent in loaning the phone to a detainee - "even if he thought the detainee was calling his wife's allergist" - as long as the phone calls helped the detainee or some enemy.

Information from the New York Times was used in this report.

Fast Facts:

The charges

- Aiding the enemy by providing an unmonitored cell phone to detainees between Oct. 1, 2005, and Oct. 31, 2006.

- Having unauthorized possession of classified information between Oct. 31, 2006 and Feb. 22.

- Fraternizing with the daughter of a detainee between Oct. 20, 2005, and Feb. 22.

- Providing special privileges to and maintaining an inappropriate relationship with an interpreter between Dec. 1, 2005, and Dec. 11, 2006.

- Wrongfully storing classified information in his living space from Feb. 18 to 21.

- Improperly marking classified information between Sept. 1, 2006 and Feb. 21.

- Failing to obey an order by a military police deputy commander on or about Feb. 22.

- Possessing pornographic videos from Feb. 18 to Feb. 21.

- Failing to fulfill his obligations as an approving authority in the expenditure of funds between Oct. 1, 2005, and Oct. 31, 2006.

Associated Press

[Last modified April 27, 2007, 01:35:51]