DENVER (AP) - An Army officer is scheduled to go on trial today in the grisly suffocation death of an Iraqi general amid speculation his lawyer will argue the general was already weakened by a severe beating at the hands of a group linked to the CIA.

Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr is charged with murder in the 2003 death of Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush. Prosecution documents say Mowhoush had been placed headfirst in a sleeping bag and bound during interrogation, and that he died with one officer sitting on him.

The documents say an electrical cord may also have been involved, but they did not say how.
Welshofer's attorney, Frank Spinner, declined to discuss what he said were classified matters involving Welshofer's defence, but he said "there will be classified matters brought up."

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