Jury acquits Ohio reservist
The soldier was one of several accused of beating a detainee in Afghanistan.
FORT BLISS, Texas (AP) -- A military jury acquitted a reservist Thursday in the final case involving an Army reserve unit from Ohio that was linked to prisoner abuses at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
Sgt. Alan J. Driver was the fifth of 11 soldiers from the Cincinnati-based 377th MP Company to be cleared of abusing detainees. Only one soldier from the unit was convicted by an Army jury, and he was spared jail time. Two pleaded guilty to assault, and charges against three others were dropped.
A jury of three enlisted soldiers and five officers took about 15 minutes to reach a verdict in Driver's case.
Driver was accused of being one of several soldiers who participated in beating a detainee known as Habibullah, who the Army says died of his injuries. Driver is also accused of throwing a shackled and handcuffed prisoner, Omar al-Farouq, against a wall.
Driver's attorney, Capt. Michael Waddington, had argued that prosecution witnesses had no credibility.
He showed jurors a receipt indicating that al-Farouq, a former Al-Qaida operative, was released from the jail in good condition Sept. 20, before the time prosecutors alleged Driver threw him against a wall.
"All we have is clouded memories, completely differing accounts of what happened," Waddington told the jury.
Prosecutor's argument
Capt. John B. Parker, the prosecutor, stressed that the case was about abuse of authority.
"It's not a question of confusion. It's not a question of fog of war. It's two specific incidents where a soldier went over the line," Parker said.
During the only day of testimony, one member of the 377th MP Company said it was not uncommon for MPs to forcefully wake sleeping detainees, and another testified he never saw Driver mistreat anyone.
The investigation was launched shortly after two detainees, men known as Dilawar and Habibullah, died within days of each other in Bagram in December 2002. No one has been prosecuted for the detainees' deaths, though both cases were ruled homicides and the Army claims the men were beaten to death inside the jail.
The two soldiers who pleaded guilty went to prison for a few months and were kicked out of the Army. The cases against three others were dropped in part because investigators in some pretrial hearings found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Of the four soldiers acquitted before Driver, three faced allegations from single witnesses whose testimony varied from day to day.