Steven Stefanowicz, the former Adelaide IT recruiter at the centre of torture allegations inside Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, has revealed that he directed prison guards to keep Iraqi prisoners awake for up to 20 hours a day. In sworn testimony to an army investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Mr Stefanowicz said prisoners were placed on a "sleep-meal management program" that saw them sleep in small blocks of time, no more than four hours out of every 24 for three days.
"The (military police officers) are allowed to do what is necessary to keep the detainee awake in the allotted period of time as long as it adheres to approved rules of engagement and proper treatment of the detainee," Mr Stefanowicz said. Mr Stefanowicz claimed he may have heard, but did not see, military police physically abusing detainees.
He added that he did not see any abuse inside Abu Ghraib such as that documented in recent photos, which show prisoners being beaten, stripped naked, sexually humiliated and intimidated by dogs. The testimony by Mr Stefanowicz, a 35-year-old American who spent 18 months working in Adelaide until returning after September 11, 2001, conflicts with evidence given by US commanders in Iraq and implicates Colonel Thomas Pappas, the military intelligence chief at Abu Ghraib, who is said to have personally approved the sleep deprivation tactics.
Major-General Geoffrey Miller, now in charge of US prisons in Iraq, and former Iraq commander Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, have said their orders allowed military police to offer information to help interrogators, but they were forbidden to take active roles, such as denying sleep.
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9856523%255E421,00.html
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