FORT MEADE, Maryland: The abuse of Abu Ghraib prisoners undermines US efforts to bring democracy to Iraq, an Army prosecutor told a military jury tasked with sentencing a dog handler for using his animal to torment a detainee.

Army Sergeant Santos A. Cardona was convicted on Thursday of dereliction of duty and aggravated assault for allowing his Belgian shepherd to bark within inches of a prisoner's face. Sentencing deliberations were scheduled to resume on Friday.

Cardona became the 11th soldier convicted of crimes stemming from the abuse of inmates at the prison in late 2003 and early 2004. He faces a maximum penalty of three-and-a-half years in prison, a dishonourable discharge and forfeiture of all pay and allowances.

During a two-hour sentencing hearing on Thursday, prosecutor Major Matthew Miller recommended confinement of 12 months and a bad conduct discharge. Cardona's military lawyer, Captain Kirsten M. Mayer, asked for no prison time and a return to duty.

Miller said abuse of prisoners hurts the war on terrorism by damaging America's image. "You can win all kinds of battles and end up losing the whole dang war basically for boneheaded decisions and misjudgments," he told the jury.But Mayer said Miller was exaggerating.

"What we have here is a soldier who let his dog get too close to a detainee, and the dog barked," she told the panel.

Cardona was acquitted of other serious charges he faced, including unlawfully having his dog bite a detainee, conspiring with another dog handler to frighten prisoners into soiling themselves and lying to investigators about the alleged game.

He was convicted of allowing his dog to bark within inches of the face of a kneeling detainee, Kamel Miza'l Nayil, in December 2003 at the request of another soldier who wasn't an interrogator.

Prosecutors portrayed Cardona as part of a small group of corrupt soldiers who enjoyed tormenting prisoners.

But Cardona's civilian defence lawyer, Harvey J. Volzer, said his client did what his training and senior officers demanded: protect fellow soldiers and scare inmates.

Although none of the offences was alleged to have occurred during interrogations, Cardona's defence team focused on interrogation policies, including three memos issued in a month's time by Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, then commander of US forces in Iraq.

The memos authorized harsher interrogation techniques such as stress positions, sleep deprivation and dogs at Abu Ghraib but only with written authorization.

The changing policies confounded Colonel Thomas M. Pappas, an intelligence officer who assumed the prison's management in late 2003. Pappas was reprimanded last year for approving a request to use dogs in an interrogation without Sanchez' approval.

Source: China Daily