6 months in jail for U.S. Army dog handler

FORT MEADE, Md., March 23 (UPI) -- For his role in Iraqi prisoner abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, a U.S. Army dog handler has been sentenced to six months in jail and fined.

Military jurors at Fort Meade, Md., sentenced Sgt. Michael Smith, 24, to serve 179 days in confinement and to forfeit $2,250 in pay for convictions on five criminal counts They included maltreatment of detainees, dereliction of duty and committing an indecent act. Smith will also be reduced to the rank of private and will receive a bad-conduct discharge at the end of his prison term, the Washington Post reported.

He could have received a sentence of eight and a half years.

Smith is among four military police soldiers who have gone to trial for the abuses in 2003, documented in photographs that came to light last year.

Former corporal Charles Graner received the longest sentence, 10 years, for abuse that included piling naked detainees into a pyramid, and former private first class Lynndie England was sentenced to three years in prison for her role.