A file photo of Sabrina Harman

A US military policewoman behind some of the most ghastly photographs from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison scandal was sentenced to six months in jail for her role in the abuse by a military jury late Tuesday.

Specialist Sabrina Harman, 27, will also be reduced in rank to private and receive a bad conduct discharge, the military jury ruled.

Harman was convicted Monday of four charges of maltreatment of detainees, one charge of conspiracy to maltreat detainees and dereliction of duty. She had faced a maximum sentence of five and a half years in jail, but prosecutors asked the jury to sentence her to three years in jail.

"I think she was extremely relieved," said defense attorney Frank Spinner, adding that Harman will likely serve just over 100 days in jail.

A former pizza restaurant manager, Harman is credited with setting up one of the most infamous pictures from Abu Ghraib, that of a hooded inmate in rags standing on a box with electrical wires attached to his hands.

International publication of those photographs led to widespread condemnation of US practices in Iraq at a time when US forces were trying to bring the country under control after the 2003 invasion.

She also posed grinning behind a pyramid of naked Iraqi prisoners, giving a thumbs-up in front of a corpse wrapped in plastic, and wrote the misspelled word "rapeist" on the leg on one of the inmates.

In an effort to reduce her sentence, Harman's defense team tried to paint Harman as a kind woman unable to properly react to a situation that had gotten out of control.