MANNHEIM, Germany - A U.S. military judge today rejected a defense motion to bar evidence gained from a key suspect's computer in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal. The defense had claimed investigators acted improperly in taking material from the laptop.

Judge Col. James Pohl also rejected a defense motion to have Spc. Charles Graner's eventual trial moved out of Iraq, saying the request was premature.

As the two-day hearing began at a U.S. military base in Germany, lawyers for Graner - identified in previous testimony as the alleged ringleader - suggested he had been too tired to make a clear decision about his rights when he allowed investigators to take a computer and CDs from his quarters at the prison in January.

But Pohl rejected a defense request to bar anything found on the laptop as evidence, while stressing that the point could be raised again later once it became clear what was on the computer.

He granted a defense motion to suppress a statement by Graner, cited by an investigator who testified today, that "everything you want is in my computer."

Graner, 35, of Uniontown, Pa., is among four soldiers charged with abuse at Abu Ghraib who is facing hearings this week at a heavily secured U.S. military base in Mannheim. Spc. Megan Ambuhl's case was to be heard later today, while Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick and Spc. Javal Davis had hearings set for Tuesday.

Lawyers won a judge's ruling to move the two-day session from Baghdad, where the process of bringing the defendants to trial began, to this west German city. The sessions will allow lawyers to raise questions of evidence and other motions on behalf of the defendants.

"They've been arraigned, now they have motions to bring to the judge's attention," Maj. Andrew Pollock, an Army attorney whose office is responsible for the Mannheim area, told The Associated Press.

Ambuhl's lawyers said they would ask for testimony by a prison psychologist. Lawyers for both Graner and Ambuhl also said they would ask the court to spell out in detail what offenses the defendants allegedly committed and when.

The Abu Ghraib scandal broke in April when photographs of hooded and naked prisoners were made public, touching off furious international criticism. Defense lawyers have suggested that the soldiers were following orders.

Graner became known worldwide from the picture of him posing for the camera with his thumbs up behind a pile of naked prisoners. He has been accused of jumping on prisoners as they lay on the ground, stomping on the hands and bare feet of several prisoners, and punching one inmate in the temple so hard that he lost consciousness.

Additionally, he faces adultery charges for having sex with Pfc. Lynndie England, who is now pregnant with his child and is currently facing a pretrial hearing in Fort Bragg, N.C.