Soldier’s Rights Called Violated

RALEIGH, N.C. — Military investigators illegally questioned an Army private at the center of a probe of abuse of Iraqi prisoners, interrogating her for up to 12 hours after ignoring her request for a lawyer and forcing her to sign a waiver of her rights, a lawyer for the soldier said Wednesday.

Lawyers for Pfc. Lynndie England intend to ask that her statements be suppressed and that military investigators be sanctioned for violating her rights, said Giorgio Ra’Shadd, a member of her legal team.

England, 21, an Army reservist from Fort Ashby, W.Va., appears in photos smiling and pointing at the genitals of a naked Iraqi and holding a leash bound around the neck of another prisoner at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

Maj. Rich Patterson, a spokesman for the 18th Airborne Corps at Ft. Bragg, declined to address Ra’Shadd’s accusations Wednesday, saying the military justice system would be a more appropriate forum.