Lynndie England gets 3 years

KILLEEN, Texas, Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Pfc. Lynndie England, the most notorious soldier involved in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, was sentenced Tuesday to three years.

A military jury at Fort Hood included a dishonorable discharge in the sentence, The Washington Post reported.

A photograph of England holding a naked chained detainee on a leash appeared in newspapers around the world after the scandal became public.

England was the last of a group of nine members of the Army Reserve to be sentenced, her trial delayed after a military judge rejected her guilty plea. Her former boyfriend, Pfc. Charles Graner, received a 10-year prison term.

Critics have accused the Defense Department of scapegoating low-ranking soldiers like England, a 20-year-old from Fort Ashby, W. Va., when she served at Abu Ghraib in 2003.

Capt. Ian Fishback, in an interview with the Post, said that he had been talking to Army investigators whose only interest was in identifying soldiers who had given information to Human Rights Watch.

"The way we have been treating detainees is immoral," Fishback said. "We had a serious command climate problem, across the board. One of the things that infuriates me is that the leaders are not accepting responsibility."