[Mb-civic] Whistleblower Threatened

[Barbara Siomos]

    Family of Iraq Abuse Whistleblower Threatened 
    Reuters 
    Monday 16 August 2004
 
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - 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.
 
    "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 investigator "That's not what we are
there for. 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."