A military police officer was discharged partly because of a head injury he suffered while posing as an uncooperative detainee during a training exercise at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Army acknowledged Tuesday.

The Army previously said Spc. Sean Baker’s medical discharge in April was unrelated to the injury he received last year at the detention center, where the U.S. government holds suspected terrorists.

Maj. Laurie Arellano, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, said the Army has received more information about what medical evaluators considered in the case.

“It’s not the only thing that led to his medical discharge,” she said.

Arellano said medical privacy laws prevented her from discussing any other factors that led to Baker’s discharge unless he authorizes the release of his medical records. But Baker’s lawyer, Bruce Simpson, complained that the Army has not responded to his request for the records.

Baker, 37, a former member of the 438th Military Police Company, said he played the role of an uncooperative prisoner and was beaten so badly by four U.S. soldiers in another company that he suffered a traumatic brain injury and seizures.

Baker, of Georgetown in central Kentucky, said the soldiers only stopped beating him when they realized he might be American.

Abuse investigator named

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has ordered the Navy’s inspector general to investigate prisoner operations and intelligence gathering practices conducted chiefly by the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The new order puts a high-ranking Navy officer in the unusual position of investigating the practices of Army officers and soldiers — at the same time the Army is conducting its own high-profile investigation of prison abuse.

Rumsfeld has directed Vice Adm. Albert “Tom” Church to broaden his earlier review of the treatment of terrorism suspects at U.S. Naval installations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Charleston, S.C., according to Pentagon officials.

Church began assembling a team of Navy intelligence officers to travel to Baghdad 10 days ago. Church and several three-man teams of intelligence and legal advisers were expected to begin work this week in Iraq, according to sources.