Santos Cardona
Santos A. Cardona (1974 - 28 February 2009) was a sergeant in the United States Army. He was one of the members of the U.S. military police personnel who were charged with torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Military career
Cardona joined the United States Army in 1993 at the age of 17, needing his father's signature as a waiver to join. His career led him to become a dog handler, a job he performed on deployments to Kosovo, Iraq, and later, as a government contractor in Afghanistan. His duties as a dog handler included both security, and also use of the canine's sense of smell to locate explosives, both improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and unexploded ordnance (UXO).
While deployed to Iraq, Cardona was accused of using his Belgian Malinois dog "Duco", to threaten Iraqis in Abu Ghraib prison. Photos of the event were later made public. In May 2006 he was convicted of dereliction of duty and aggravated assault, the equivalent of a felony in the U.S. civilian justice system. The prosecution demanded prison time, but a military judge imposed a fine and reduction in rank, and he was required to serve 90 days of hard labor at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.