CBC News: the fifth estate - A Few Bad Apples: The Night of October 25, 2003

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Aired November 16,
2005 at 9pm
on CBC-TV

WATCH the fifth estate ONLINE

Watch this story online.

REPORTER: Gillian Findlay
PRODUCER: Morris Karp

WEB EXCLUSIVE

John Yoo was a member of the legal team that developed a new policy
for the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq.

Read more of his interview with the fifth estate.

THE NIGHT OF OCTOBER 25, 2003

It started out as a quiet night at Abu Ghraib prison. Most of the 7000 Iraqis detained there were held on the ground in tents. Only the worst prisoners were held on Tier 1A of the cell block. They were considered 'high value' detainees.

But just before midnight three Iraqi prisoners were pulled from their cells. Word had spread that they had raped a teenaged boy. Israel Rivera, an American reserve soldier was present. "They're ordered to get down on their stomachs and to start crawling low enough to where their genitals are scraping across the floor. These men were petrified." (see large photograph at top of page)

Ken Davis says his military training did not prepare him for the disturbing events he witnessed.

Ken Davis, a military policeman also stumbled across the scene. "They were screaming. They were crying out for help and kept saying, 'no, no, no - we didn't do it."

Nobody bothered to investigate the rape allegation. The prisoners were chained together and interrogator Roman Kroll and specialist Armin Cruz forced them into sexual positions.

"I can't say I didn't care. But I learned what the detainees did to that kid, so I didn't feel any remorse for them," remembers Kroll.

Stressed from witnessing a mortar attack in which his friend was killed a few weeks earlier, Armin Cruz admits that he snapped. "I viewed them as people that mortared us and shot us. So I viewed them as nothing more than a pop-up target I was supposed to take out."

"Have you ever read "Lord of the Flies"? You're put under a certain stress and you're given that opportunity and no matter how good of a person you are there's that dark element in all of us...shouting to be let go." says Rivera. He watched for about twenty minutes and walked away. "You realize that there's just some door that you never walk through for fear of never returning." He reported the incident the next morning.

Ken Davis also walked away but will never forget what happened. "It's what keeps me awake at night. I didn't want him (the prisoner) to remember how Americans treated him that night because it was wrong."

Armin Cruz was at the centre of the abuse. He now suffers from flashbacks and needs therapy to deal with it.

Davis and Rivera testified against their friends. Armin Cruz was sentenced to eight months in prison, a reduction in rank and a bad-conduct discharge. Roman Krol was sentenced to 10 months in confinement after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy and abusing detainees. Another soldier also seen in the photograph but not interviewed by the fifth estate, Charles Graner, was convicted of assault, conspiracy, maltreatment of detainees, committing indecent acts, and dereliction of duty and received ten years in prison for his crimes.

A few days after the photos were taken the army concluded that the prisoners were innocent. There had been no rape.

The abuse seen that night was a common occurrence at Abu Ghraib prison.

SOLDIERS IN THE PHOTOGRAPH

Roman Krol emigrated to the United States from St Petersburg, Russia in 1995. He received his training in military intelligence in the spring and summer of 2001 and arrived in Abu Ghraib in August 2003. Krol now lives in Massachusetts .

Israel Rivera, a native of Texas, joined the Army while still in high school. In the summer of 2003 when he was still 19, Rivera was deployed to Iraq with a Connecticut based unit. Rivera was taught in military intelligence in is currently a Government Studies major in Austin, Texas.

Ken Davis worked as a military policeman in Abu Ghraib prison where he was assigned to transport detainees to and from a Baghdad courthouse. Prior to this he worked as a military policeman in the air force and as a private investigator. Davis is currently training to be a police officer in Maryland.

Armin Cruz lives in Plano, Texas. Cruz's father, Armin Jose Cruz, was the first Cuban-American to graduate from West Point, in 1977. He volunteered to deploy to Iraq in the spring of 2003 and arrived in Iraq in the fall of that year. He is currently completing his undergraduate university studies.

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