Sergeant `flagged' for telling news
media about prison abuses

By Mike Dorning
Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The Army on Friday disciplined a military intelligence analyst who told The Tribune about the mistreatment of a 16-year-old boy and other abuses by interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Sgt. Samuel Provance, 30, said his battalion commander instructed him to turn in his top-secret clearance and was informed he would be reassigned.

Provance said he also was told his record is "flagged," meaning he cannot receive promotions, awards or honors. He added that he was warned he might be subject to further disciplinary action for discussing abuses at the prison with the news media.

"It's in reference to what's happened--for going public," the sergeant said. "It's not unexpected."

Now stationed in Germany, Provance recently completed an assignment at Abu Ghraib, outside of Baghdad. He also gave on-the-record interviews describing interrogators' roles in the abuses to ABC News, the Washington Post and The Associated Press.

A lawyer familiar with the case said Provance also was ordered Friday not to discuss abuses at the prison with other government agencies, which the lawyer said appeared intended to bar him from giving information to congressional investigators.

Army spokesman Paul Boyce said he could not discuss the sanctions, saying that Pentagon policy is to keep personnel actions private.

But he said Provance is considered a material witness in the investigation of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and has been admonished not to discuss matters that could come up in future testimony to a court-martial.

This week Provance described how interrogators abused the 16-year-old to end his father's resistance to questioning. The teen was stripped naked, thrown in the open back of a truck, driven around on a cold night, splattered with mud and then presented to his father, he said.

The father then broke down and cried after the incident, and told interrogators he would tell them what they wanted, Provance said.

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