Summary

NAME: STILLS SMITH 20060323I TAPE: EF06/0250 IN_TIME: 10:24:23:06 DURATION: 00:00:25:07 SOURCES: SEE SCRIPT DATELINE: Various - FILE RESTRICTIONS: See Script SHOTLIST: AP STILLS - NO ACCESS CANADA / INTERNET Fort Meade, Maryland - March 14, 2006 1. Sergeant Michael J. Smith, right, gets into a car after the second day of his trial, in which he was accused of using a dog to terrify Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib AP STILLS - NO ACCESS CANADA / INTERNET Fort Meade, Maryland - July 27 2005 2. Sergeant Michael J. Smith, right, walks toward the Magistrate Court building along with one of his defence lawyers, Capt. Mary G. McCarthy AP STILLS - NO ACCESS CANADA / INTERNET ++ MUST COURTESY WASHINGTON POST ++ Abu Ghraib prison, Baghdad, Iraq - date unknown 3. Photo made available by The Washington Post on Friday May 21, 2004, showing a US soldier, later identified in a military court-martial as Sergeant Michael J. Smith, holding a dog in front an Iraqi detainee at Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad STORYLINE: A US Army dog handler has been sentenced to about six months in prison for tormenting Abu Ghraib prisoners with his snarling Belgian shepherd. Sergeant Michael J. Smith, 24, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was ordered on Wednesday to serve 179 days in prison and reduced to the rank of private. He will also forfeit 750 US dollars (621 euros) a month of his pay for three months and receive a bad-conduct discharge after his release from prison. Smith had faced up to eight years in prison after his conviction on Tuesday on five of the 13 offences he was charged with. The jury convicted him of conspiring with another dog handler to try to frighten detainees into soiling themselves and directing his dog to lick peanut butter off other soldiers' bodies. In closing arguments, prosecutors urged the panel of four officers and three senior non-commissioned officers to send Smith to prison for at least three years, followed by a bad-conduct discharge. Major Matthew Miller, a prosecution lawyer, said such a sentence would send a message that such actions would not be tolerated. But the defence said Smith should serve no jail time and instead be returned to his family and his unit. Captain Scott Rolle told the jury that while Smith made mistakes at Abu Ghraib, he was also a hero, decorated for saving the lives of other US soldiers during a mortar attack. Smith appeared unrepentant about the abuse charges when he addressed the jury Tuesday, shortly after he was convicted reportedly saying that soldiers were not "supposed to be soft and cuddly''. The relatively light sentence surprised Eugene R. Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, who said he thought Smith would get years, not months, of confinement. Nine other soldiers have been convicted of abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib, in many cases by forcing them to assume painful positions and humiliate themselves sexually while being photographed.