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Family of Iraq abuse whistleblower threatened
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-08-17 01:08
Relatives of the U.S. soldier who sounded the alarm about abuse of Iraqi
detainees at Abu Ghraib prison said on Monday the family was living in
protective custody because of death threats against them.
Reservist military police officer Staff Sgt. Joseph Darby alerted U.S. Army
investigators about the abuse by fellow soldiers of prisoners at Abu Ghraib
prison near Baghdad, a move his wife says has angered people in their community
in western Maryland.
Detainees at Abu Ghraib lay naked
and bound to each other in front of other detainees in this undated photo.
[AFP] |
"People were mean, saying he was a
walking dead man, he was walking around with a bull's eye on his head. It was
scary," said Bernadette Darby from Corriganville, Maryland.
Mrs. Darby said it was difficult living in protective custody, and she missed
her privacy. She did not say who was providing the protection.
"There's always someone with you," she told ABC's "Good Morning America"
show.
Despite the threats, Mrs. Darby she believed her husband made the right
choice exposing the abuse.
"Joe is the type of person to take what is going on around him and be like,
'How would I feel if that was my wife?' ... He just could not live with himself
knowing that that was happening and he did not do anything about it," she said.
Darby's sister-in-law, Maxine Carroll, said people had written graffiti on
her fence but she also applauded what her brother-in-law did and said she was
horrified by a series of graphic photographs Darby handed over to investigators.
"That's not what we are there for (in Iraq). We are there to show them the
right way. When Joe can talk, then that is what he will say," she said.
In testimony this month at a hearing for one of the soldiers accused of
abusing prisoners, Darby said he struggled with the decision to turn over the
photos because he was friendly with one of the accused.
What he saw on the CDs containing the photos, he said, "violated everything I
personally believed in and everything I had been taught about the rules of war."
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