Related Information for
PALACE OF THE END
PRIVATE LYNNDIE ENGLAND.
While playwright Judith Thompson tactfully chose
not to call her out by name, the first monologue of PALACE OF THE END
undoubtedly draw its inspiration from the real life case of Army Private
Lynddie England who became famous to the world after a series of horrifying
pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison were published by the Washington Post on May
6th, 2004 -- some of which featured PFC England in various poses that
suggested her complicity in (if not outright enjoyment of) the abuses that
were conducted by American authorities on their Iraqi prisoners.
To further explore the real historical events from
that our play draws upon, a short rundown on the facts of PFC England's case
is provided below as well as a recent interview with England herself on the
specifics of what happened to her.
SOME BASIC FACTS.
Lynndie Rana England (born November 8,
1982) is a former United States Army Reservist who served in the 372nd
Military Police Company. She was one of several felons convicted
by the Army courts-martialin connection with the torture and prisoner abuse at
the Abu Ghraib Prison in Baghdad during the early stages of the U.S. military
occupation of Iraq.
England held the rank of Specialist while serving in
Iraq. Along with other soldiers, she was found guilty of inflicting
sexual, physical, and psychological abuse on Iraqi prisoner of war.
England faced a general court-martial in January 2005
on charges of conspiracy to maltreat prisoners and assault consummated by
battery. The formal charges did not mention the word
"torture," although many commentators have used that word to
describe her conduct.
On April 30th, 2005, England agreed to plead guilty
to abuse charges. Her plea bargain would have reduced her maximum
sentence from 16 years to 11 years had it been accepted by the military
judge. She would have pleaded guilty to four counts of maltreating
prisoners, two counts of conspiracy, and one count of dereliction of
duty. In exchange, prosecutors would have dropped two other charges,
committing indecent acts and failure to obey a lawful order.
On May 4th, 2005, military judge COL James Pohl
tossed out her plea bargain, as new testimony by now PVT Charles Graner
suggested that PFC England did not know her actions were wrong at the
time. This contradicted PFC England's statements of May 2nd, 2005, when
she entered her guilty plea. On September 26th of that same year,
England was convicted of one count of conspiracy, four counts of maltreating
detainees and one count of committing an indecent act. She was acquitted on a
second conspiracy count. She was sentenced to three years in a military
prison for her crimes.
England worked in the kitchen of a prison (Naval
Consolidate Brig, Miramar) from which she was paroled on March 3rd, 2007,
after having served 521 days. She will remain on parole through
September 2008, when her three-year sentence will be complete and she will
receive a dishonorable discharge.
RECENT ARTICLE ON & INTERVIEW WITH PFC
ENGLAND.
The following is a re-print from wired.com by Kim
Zetter, March 19th, 2008.
Convicted Abu Ghraib Guard Lynndie England
Blames Media for Controversy
Lynndie England, the former Abu Ghraib guard whose face became a symbol
in 2004 for everything that went wrong with the Iraq War, has blamed the
media for the prisoner abuse scandal that brought shame to the military in a
new interview with the German news magazine Stern (the
interview is in English).
England tells the magazine that there was no reason for the media to
publish the images of prisoner abuse, since military authorities already
knew about them and were investigating the issue, and that had media outlets
simply published stories without images it wouldn't have become a worldwide
scandal and a rallying cry for insurgents in Iraq to increase their violent
attacks against U.S. troops.
England, who was sentenced to three years in prison, was released a year
ago after serving about 17 months and now lives in a trailer with her
parents and toddler son -- the child of Charles Graner, Jr., who was
reportedly the ringleader of the abuse at Abu Ghraib. In the interview, she
describes how the FBI and CIA encouraged the guards to abuse prisoners at
Abu Ghraib:
How did you react when Graner told you how the detainees were
being treated?
Of course it was wrong. I know that now. But when you show the people
from the CIA, the FBI and the MI the pictures and they say, "Hey,
this is a great job. Keep it up", you think it must be right.
They
were all there and they didn't say a word. They didn't wear uniforms, and
if they did they had their nametags covered.
Which photos did Graner present to them?
All of them. He showed them on his laptop. He'd say, "Hey, let me
show you this, this is what we're supposed to be doing." And they
said, "Yeah, we got great results, keep it up, you're doing a good
job." He actually got a letter of commendation for the stuff he did.
England also discusses waterboarding:
Did you do any waterboarding?
No, I didn't. And I didn't witness it. But that doesn't mean it wasn't
done. Because a lot of the time the interrogators would take the prisoners
into the showers and close the doors and we would have to put like sheets
or blankets up over the windows. We could hear what was going on but we
couldn't see.
You heard screams?
Yeah. Sometimes.
At the time, were you aware of people being killed while at Abu
Ghraib? One of them was the guy they called "The Iceman".
Yeah, I heard about it. Actually, I was there the night the Iceman was
killed. I went to Tier One and someone said this guy had been taken to the
showers and they had the water running, and you could hear this guy just
screaming bloody murder. It got to the point where it was so loud and
unbearable that I went back to my room. And the next day when I came back
there was this puddle of water outside the shower. And I asked,
"What's that from?" And they said, "Oh, its ice from
keeping the body till they could transport him." The Iceman was one
of the "Ghost Detainees" that officially never existed.
A couple of weeks ago Wired.com published an interview I conducted with a former Stanford psychologist who was a
defense witness for one of the Abu Ghraib guards. Accompanying the article
was a series of photos depicting the abuses at Abu Ghraib, one of which shows
a female soldier grinning over the body of "The Iceman" (below),
according to Philip Zimbardo, the psychologist who provided the images.
Sabrina Harman, a former U.S. army reservist, poses next to the body of
an Abu Ghraib prisoner said to be Manadel al-Jamadi (aka "The
Iceman").
Photo courtesy of Philip Zimbardo
Manadel al-Jamadi (aka The Iceman) was an unregistered CIA
"ghost" prisoner at Abu Ghraib who died under interrogation.
His
body was put on ice to keep it from decomposing until it could be disposed
of.
In 2005, Time Magazine published a story piecing together what
is known about Iceman's death, which has been ruled a
homicide. The piece depicts what occurred to him in a shower room, which
might also reveal some of what occurred to other prisoners whom England says
were taken to the shower rooms.
Readers might also be interested in this new
piece from the New Yorker about Sabrina Harman -- Exposure: The
Woman Behind the Camera at Abu Ghraib -- which provides interesting
background on her and the photos.
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