"Aiding the enemy" probe starts for US officer in Iraq

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq, Apr 30 (Reuters) A formal investigation began today to decide if a US Army officer accused of ''aiding the enemy'' while he ran a US detention centre in Iraq should face a court-martial.

Lieutenant-Colonel William Steele, commander of the 451st Military Police Detachment, ran the detention facilities at Camp Cropper, near Baghdad international airport, where insurgents and former senior aides to Saddam Hussein are held.

He is charged with fraternising with a detainee's daughter, having an improper relationship with a translator, providing unmonitored mobile phones to prisoners, unauthorised possession of classified information and keeping pornographic videos.

Steele, tall and wearing wire-rimmed spectacles, appeared at the investigation at a US military base called Camp Victory near Baghdad's airport. He has been in detention in Kuwait since last month.

The offences are alleged to have occurred between October 2005 and February 2007. The US military has said the charges are only an accusation of wrongdoing and that Steele is entitled to the presumption of innocence.

Evidence will be presented during an Article 32 hearing expected to last two or three days. The formal investigation will determine whether Steele should face a court-martial.

Steele, charged under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice, is accused of aiding the enemy by providing detainees with unmonitored mobile phones between October 2005 and October 2006.

He is the highest-ranking US officer to face a charge of aiding the enemy since Captain James Yee, a Muslim chaplain serving at Guantanamo Bay, was charged in September 2003 with mutiny, sedition, aiding the enemy, adultery and possession of pornography.

Yee spent 76 days in solitary confinement before the army's case against him collapsed at trial.

Camp Cropper, which holds more than 3,000 detainees, is where Saddam spent his final days before his execution on December 30. It was expanded to include prisoners from Abu Ghraib prison, notorious for the prisoner abuse scandal involving US troops.

The military confirmed for the first time last week that Saddam had not been held at Camp Cropper as it was always widely believed but at another, secret facility during his three years of incarceration.

The former Iraqi president visited Camp Cropper only for medical checkups and stayed there before his execution, the military said.

REUTERS SZ SSC1316