Ivan Frederick
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Image:Image615903x.jpg Ivan Frederick II (born 1966/67), called Chip Frederick, of Buckingham County, Virginia, is a former Staff Sergeant in the United States Army. He was the highest in rank of the seven U.S. military police personnel who have been charged with torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, all of whom were members of the 372nd Military Police company. He was the senior enlisted soldier at the prison from October to December 2003.
Prior to his deployment to Iraq, Frederick was a corrections officer at Buckingham Correctional Center in Dillwyn, Virginia. His wife, Martha, also works there.
On May 12, Frederick was ordered to undergo a general court-martial for "conspiracy to maltreat detainees, dereliction of duty for negligibly failing to protect detainees from abuse, maltreatment of detainees, and wrongfully committing an indecent act by watching detainees commit a sexual act."
Frederick was the most senior Abu Ghraib guard to be charged, although Charles Graner is frequently described as being the ringleader.
The charges included taking part in the incident in which a prisoner had wires attached to his hands and forced to stand on a box, where he was told that if he stepped off the box he would be electrocuted. Frederick was also charged with forcing nude prisoners into a pyramid, forcing a prisoner to masturbate in front of other prisoners and guards, and forcing a prisoner to place his face into the pubic region of another prisoner, simulating oral sex.
A witness testified that he saw Frederick hit prisoners, and saw him watching prisoners performing a simulated sex act.
Frederick said that he was ordered to commit the offenses by his acting battalion commander. The reference is not clear, but at one time Lt. Col. Ronald Chew replaced a regular 115th Military Police Battalion commander (Lt. Col. Jerry Phillabaum) at that facility.
It was members of Frederick's family who had given the incriminating photos (alt) to 60 Minutes.
On October 20, 2004, Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick pled guilty to conspiracy, dereliction of duty, maltreatment of detainees, assault and committing an indecent act in exchange for other charges being dropped. He was sentenced to eight years in prison, forfeiture of pay, a dishonorable discharge and a reduction in rank to private.
freechipfrederick.com
Frederick's friends and family tried to organize an internet campaign to rally support for him. They created a home-spun website, http://freechipfrederick.com for this purpose.
The site had an FAQ. The FAQ described Frederick's attempts to get a copy of the Geneva Conventions. It described Frederick's attempts to get official clarity around the unofficial orders he was getting to rough up the prisoners. It described Frederick being threatened and being mocked for a childish concern for his charges welfare.
The FAQ also commented on Jeremy Sivits and Joseph Darby. Sivits was, at that time, the only suspect to have plead guilty. Frederick's family was forgiving of Sivits. The FAQ was extremely critical of Darby, the whistleblower. It described him as a "fence-setter".
The site claimed that the DoD had purposely chosen to put unsophisticated hill people in charge of guarding the Iraqi suspects, because they would be too unsophisticated to know when their orders violated the law.
When Frederick pleaded guilty they took the site down.fi:Ivan Frederick