Haditha Article 32: LCpl. Justin L. Sharratt

Defend Our Marines ^ | June 10, 2007 | David Allender

[RedRover]

Please visit...

• The Sharratt family website
• YouTube for a very moving music video created by a childhood friend of Justin.

And, most of all, please remember Justin and the entire Sharratt family in your prayers.

Justin and mom before his second deployment, January 2005.

[RedRover]

Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt on his second deployment to Iraq.

[RaceBannon]

Great Find!

[lilycicero]

Thanks for the update and the “roster” of those who are going to go in and lay it on the line for Justin Sharratt as he has risked his life for the US and Iraqis.
Prayers always.

[RedRover]

Find it??? I wrote it! (And the html links actually work!)

Great to see you, Race. Say a prayer, will you?

[AprilfromTexas]

Thanks for the update. Keep us informed.

These families are in my prayers.

[ticked]

Good job Red. Prayers going up.

[jazusamo]

Prayers continuing for all the Sharratt's. Thanks for this article, Red.

If you would like to help with the civilian lawyer’s legal fees for the
Haditha Marines you can do so by going to these sites.

Defend Our Marines

Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt

SSgt. Frank Wuterich

Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum

Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani

Military Combat Defense Fund

[RedRover]

Thanks, April! This thread will always have the latest news and we’ll post major developments as individual threads as well.

[Lancey Howard]

BUMP!

Thank God Justin is alive and did what he needed to do. In the same situation, with the body of my comrade laying in the street, I would have shot everything non-Marine that moved in those houses full of insurgents and collaborators.

[Eagles6]

"if any weapons were recovered from the house, they had not been fired recently."

After all this time the msm has been saying "24 unarmed iraqi civilians". Now it turns out that there were weapons found. You can sometimes tell if a weapon has been fired and not cleaned but can you tell when it had been fired? And if so, do we have the results of the tests and did the defense have access to the results? What about chain of custody for the weapons? Were the 4 iraqis' hands subjected to a gunpowder residue test by the Marines?

[RedRover]

Thanks for the bump, Lancey!

Regarding the insurgents and collaborators in Haditha, take a look at this pdf file, Investigation of 3/1 Marine 19 Nov 05 Haditha Complex Attack. It's the investigative report on Haditha from March 3, 2006, by Col. Gregory A. Watt.

[jazusamo]

You’re exactly right.

If these leaks are true these prosecutors should be drummed out of the Corps. Nothing but preemptive BS. It’s like asking someone when they stopped beating their wife.

[freema]

Ping

[freema]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo46GTIZMKw

[freema]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ervaMPt4Ha0

[Girlene]

Thanks for all the work you are doing keeping up with the Haditha Marine cases. Any idea what’s on the roster for tomorrow?

Re. the weapons, I’ve seen conflicting reports that one, two and zero weapons were found. I wonder if an investigation was not initiated at the time, if any confiscated weapons would have been kept, tagged, etc. like a police dept. would do. What happens to all the weapons that are taken from insurgents/terrorists in Iraq?

[RedRover]

The incident occurred on Nov. 19 05. Four months later, on March 17 06, NCIS agents were on their way to Iraq . After four months in storage, and not given special treatment as "evidence", I can't imagine that investigators can pinpoint the last day a weapon was fired.

As the Watt report (posted above) states, there's no way to collect physical evidence after so much time (especially when houses have been repaired). And it works both ways. If AK-47 shell casings were found in or near the houses, there's no way to prove whether the bullets were fired at Marines on Nov. 19th.

That's why I think NCIS agent did their usual thing and intimidated the hell out of Kilo Company Marines until someone was willing to play ball and say he heard someone "confess". Remember, that's what they tried in the Lt. Phan case and it blew up in their faces. Lucky for them, the Secretary of the Navy denied an investigation into their conduct.

[Girlene]

If AK-47 shell casings were found in or near the houses, there's no way to prove whether the bullets were fired at Marines on Nov. 19th.

And, since the Iraqi Army also use AK-47's, and fired at the time of the incident, how do you differentiate between Iraqi Army and insurgents' casings outside and nearby the homes?

[RedRover]

So far as I know, all the weapons are stored and destroyed eventually (what are we going to do with thousands of AK-47s?).

I'm not all at all sure about tomorrow's roster. In the Stone and Chessani hearings, they started with Marines who were in Haditha that day and could provide a kind of overview based on what they witnessed. Could be almost anybody (maybe Kallop for the third time?)

Further to the point above about NCIS, the kind of thing that bothers me is this bit about in the news about LCpl. Andrew Wright and LCpl. Ryan Briones. According to Wright's parents, Andrew "was under so much pressure because of the investigation that he had consulted with an attorney, they said."

Wright only arrived on the scene long after the action had taken place. Why would NCIS hammer at him? (Of course, Briones is in prison now so I doubt he'll be on the prosecution witness list.)