(21 Jun 2004) SHOTLIST
1. Various exteriors of Abu Ghraib prison
2. Sign reading "Baghdad Central Correctional Facility"
3. Iraqis standing outside prison
4. SOUNDBITE: (Arabic) Muyaad Hassan, Brother of Abu Ghraib inmate:
''The trial is not fair if the sentence will be one year in prison. This is unfair. It should be four or five years, so that they be a good lesson for others.''
5. Various of US soldiers outside prison
6. Watch tower of prison in distance, as seen through roll of barbed wire
STORYLINE
A man inquiring about his brother jailed in Abu Ghraib prison said on Monday that he would be dissatisfied if US troops found guilty of abusing inmates at the notorious jail were issued short sentences.
Pre-trial hearings of three American soldiers began in Baghdad on Monday, each standing accused of abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
The three are among seven soldiers accused of such crimes.
One of them, Specialist Jeremy C. Sivits, pleaded guilty last month and was sentenced to a year in prison.
But Muyaad Hassan told APTN that one year in prison is not enough, and said four to five years would act as a better deterrent to others.
During Monday's hearings in Baghdad, the military judge Colonel James Pohl, declared the Abu Ghraib prison a crime scene and said it cannot be demolished as US president George W Bush had offered.
He also dismissed requests by defence lawyers wanting to question Bush and US defence secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, but granted permission for lawyers to seek testimony from the top US general in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez and chief of the US Central Command, General John Abizaid.
The attorneys dispute allegations that their clients were involved in illegal torture and insisted that they were following orders by senior officers and military intelligence.
Pohl also refused to move the trials of the three soldiers - Specialist Charles A. Graner Jr., Sergeant Javal S. Davis and Staff Sergeant Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II - to somewhere outside Iraq.
He did, however, move Frederick's pre-trial hearing to July 23 after his civilian lawyer failed to appear and the defendant refused to waive his right to co-counsel.
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