Graner’s 10-year sentence draws scorn

? Word that a U.S. Army reservist was sentenced to 10 years behind bars for physically and sexually abusing Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison drew scorn Sunday from Iraqis who thought he should have been tried here and punished with death.

Iraq’s interim government had no official reaction, but a handful of ordinary Iraqis interviewed in Baghdad said the trial and its outcome brought no justice. Rather, it bore a humiliation just as potent as the shame that came when pictures of the abuse first emerged in April.

Abdul-Razak Abdul-Fattah, a 65-year-old retired army officer, said he was shocked to see TV footage of Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr. leaving the court smiling and laughing even while his legs and hands were shackled.

“It showed on his face that he did not regret the shameful acts that he and his colleagues committed,” he said. “Perhaps Americans think that those things, I mean showing people naked, is normal and not shameful.”

Images of reservists abusing Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib caused widespread outrage throughout the Arab world in particular, where communities can shun people who’ve suffered such deeply personal and public disgrace.

Graner, 36, thought to be the ringleader of the abuse, was accused of stacking naked prisoners in a human pyramid and later ordering them to masturbate while other soldiers took photographs. He also allegedly punched one man in the head hard enough to knock him out, and struck an injured prisoner with a collapsible metal stick.