The court martial of Specialist Charles Graner, an alleged ringleader of prison abuse at Abu Ghraib, began while that of a second US soldier accused of abuse, Sergeant Javal Davis, was expected to begin later in the day.

Graner, who posed in a notorious photograph of naked Iraqi detainees stacked in a pyramid last year, appeared clean-shaven in court.

The hearing followed Thursday's sentencing of the most senior officer charged so far, Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick, to eight years in prison.

Ahead of the trial, Davis's lawyer said he would lay responsibility for abuse at Abu Ghraib, once a notorious gulag of jailed dictator Saddam Hussein, with higher military command.

"Our position is that there was legally improper and unlawful command influence at the highest level," said attorney Paul Bergrin.

"I'm not accepting anything but victory. It would be a travesty of justice to be convicted of anything and to receive one day in incarceration."

Bergrin said 26-year-old Davis, married with two children, was to plead not-guilty and request his trial be moved back to the United States.

Davis will also request immunity be granted for some witnesses, Bergrin said.

The sergeant faces up to eight-and-a-half years in prison on seven charges including assault, dereliction of duty, maltreatment of detainees and conspiracy.

Almost all of those so far accused in the abuse scandal have argued that top military brass created an atmosphere where questionable methods were justified in gaining intelligence in Iraq.

During Frederick's two-day trial, witnesses painted a picture of a prison where higher authorities looked the other way if it resulted in good intelligence.

On the ground, US aircraft and artillery pounded suspected weapons warehouses in the insurgent bastion of Fallujah late Thursday, leaving seven people dead and three others wounded, hospital sources said.

The US army confirmed that two raids were carried out in the area Thursday.

US marine spokesman Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert said that marines carried out air raids and artillery bombardment on arms caches in the southeast of the city.

The military has carried out almost daily strikes on suspected hideouts of Islamic militant Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, blamed for many car bombings and kidnappings in Iraq.

Determined to regain control of the no-go zone, more than 1,000 joint forces have encircled the city for the last week. Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi last week ordered Fallujah residents to surrender Zarqawi or face invasion.

As US forces tightened the noose on the city west of Bagdad, an influential association of Sunni Muslim clerics, with suspected links to the insurgency, said one of its top officials had been arrested by the Americans.

Sheikh Abdessattar Abdul Jabbar, a member of the Committee of Muslim Scholars, was arrested overnight at his Baghdad home, one of his sons told AFP Friday.

The sheikh, who heads the association's network of religious schools, is the latest cleric the group has claimed was arrested by the Americans.

Earlier this month, the association said the US military arrested its representative in the flashpoint city of Ramadi, as well as the man's son.

The group said Thursday five of its members were detained between Baghdad and Fallujah and a sixth was detained north of the capital. The US military has not confirmed any of the arrests.

The association, which says it represents 3,000 mosques across Iraq, has said the country's Sunni Muslim minority may boycott January elections if the US military unleashes an expected offensive to reclaim Fallujah from rebels.

A boycott by Sunnis would be a major blow to the US and Iraqi government's aim of using elections to heal Iraq's deep internal rifts.

The New York Times reported Monday that hard-core Sunni insurgency members number between 8,000 and 12,000 and could swell to more than 20,000 if active sympathizers or covert accomplices are included.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi husband of the kidnapped Baghdad head of the international relief agency CARE, Margaret Hassan, criticized British Prime Minister Tony Blair for commenting on his wife's abduction, saying it could put the dual Iraqi-British citizen in even greater danger.

"Blair keeps on saying that his government is attempting to get Margaret freed. I do not know why the British keep on bringing this matter up so publicly," Tahsine Ali Hassan told the British newspaper The Independent.

Blair's Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon agreed Thursday to an unprecedented US request to redeploy 850 crack troops to a volatile area southwest of Baghdad, freeing up US soldiers for an expected assault on Fallujah.

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