WASHINGTON, May 14 (UPI) -- Eight personnel at U.S. Guantanamo Bay Naval Base have been punished for their treatment of prisoners, with at least one court-martial, a Navy official said.
The court-martialed soldier was acquitted.
The offenses are minor compared to the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Navy Inspector General Vice Adm. Tom Church told reporters this week, including a barber who gave one prisoner an unauthorized Mohawk haircut. The other infractions, which resulted in admonishments or reductions in rank, were by four guards and three interrogators, Church said. The infractions date back to 2002.
One military police guard punched a detainee after he had been cuffed for biting another soldier. Another guard used pepper spray against a prisoner that threw toilet water or excrement at him, an action judged premature.
"Now I characterized this to the Secretary as generally good news, because it was clear to me that the incidents are being reported, number one. Number two, the chain of command was taking swift and effective action," Church said.
Church was directed by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to review detainee operations on May 3, after the news of the Abu Ghraib abuse broke.
Church told reporters traveling with Rumsfeld to Baghdad that the guards suffer abuse from the prisoners about 14 times a week.
