FORT MEADE, Md. – An Army dog handler at Abu Ghraib was convicted Tuesday of tormenting prisoners with his snarling animal and competing with a comrade to make the Iraqis soil themselves.

Sgt. Michael J. Smith, 24, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was found guilty at a court-martial of 6 of 13 counts. The judge later dismissed one of those six counts, saying it duplicated another.

A sentencing hearing began in the afternoon. The five charges carried up to eight and a half years behind bars.

Prosecutors said Smith let his unmuzzled black Belgian shepherd bark and lunge at several prisoners for his own amusement. One of the photographs that led to the exposure of the scandal at the Iraqi prison shows his dog straining on its leash, just inches from the face of a cowering prisoner.

Smith had faced the stiffest potential sentence of any soldier charged so far in the Abu Ghraib scandal – 24 and a half years in prison.

The defense maintained that Smith was a good soldier who believed he was doing what the government wanted canine handlers to do at Abu Ghraib: Provide security and frighten interrogation subjects. Also, defense attorney Capt. Mary G. McCarthy said all that Smith’s dog did to prisoners was bark at them.

The defense further argued that Abu Ghraib was a dangerous, chaotic place where policies were so murky that even the colonel who supervised interrogations testified he was confused.

The jury deliberated for about 18 hours over three days. The soldier, wearing his green dress uniform, stood at attention, staring straight ahead, as the verdict was read.

Smith was found guilty of maltreatment involving three prisoners, conspiring with another dog handler in a contest to make detainees soil themselves, dereliction of duty, assault and an indecent act. The assault charge was dismissed.

The indecency conviction was for directing his dog to lick peanut butter off the genitals of a male soldier and the breasts of a female soldier.

The other dog handler, Sgt. Santos A. Cardona, 31, of Fullerton, Calif., is set for trial May 22.

Nine other soldiers have been convicted of abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib, in many cases by putting them in sexually humiliating poses and photographing them.