Posted on 06/10/2007 12:25:50 PM PDT by RedRover
Hearing fact sheet
The hearing is scheduled to commence June 11, 2007.
The accused, LCpl. Justin Sharratt was 21-years-old at the time of the incident, and was on his second combat tour. In 2004, Sharratt fought in the "House from Hell" in Fallujah.
Preferred Charges and Specifications:
Charge I: Violation of the UCMJ, Article 118 (Unpremeditated murder) (Maximum punishment: such punishment other than death as a court-martial may direct. [Dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, confinement for life])
Investigating officer: Lt. Col. Paul J. Ware.
Convening authority: Lt. Gen. James Mattis, commanding general for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and Marine Forces Central Commander for Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa.
Defense counsel: Gary Myers (civilian attorney), Major Brian Cosgrove (USMCR, detailed defense council).
How the incident in this house occurred according to the media:
Tim McGirk in Time (March 19, 2006):
The Marines raided a third house, which belongs to a man named Ahmed Ayed. One of Ahmed's five sons, Yousif, who lived in a house next door, told Time that after hearing a prolonged burst of gunfire from his father's house, he rushed over. Iraqi soldiers keeping watch in the garden prevented him from going in. "They told me, 'There's nothing you can do. Don't come closer, or the Americans will kill you too.' The Americans didn't let anybody into the house until 6:30 the next morning." Ayed says that by then the bodies were gone; all the dead had been zipped into U.S. body bags and taken by Marines to a local hospital morgue. "But we could tell from the blood tracks across the floor what happened," Ayed claims. "The Americans gathered my four brothers and took them inside my father's bedroom, to a closet. They killed them inside the closet."
The military has a different account of what transpired. According to officials familiar with the investigation, the Marines broke into the third house and found a group of 10 to 15 women and children. The troops say they left one Marine to guard that house and pushed on to the house next door, where they found four men, one of whom was wielding an AK-47. A second seemed to be reaching into a wardrobe for another weapon, the officials say. The Marines shot both men dead; the military's initial report does not specify how the other two men died. The Marines deny that any of the men were killed in the closet, which they say is too small to fit one adult male, much less four....In all, two AK-47s were discovered.
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William Langewiesche in Vanity Fair (November 2006):
Wuterich's men pursued the search to the north side of Route Chestnut, where they put the women and children under guard and killed four men of another family. There on the north side they found the only AK-47 that was discovered that day—apparently a household defensive weapon, of the type that is legal and common in Iraq. No one has claimed that the rifle had been fired....
A man cries, "This is an act denied by God. What did he do? To be executed in the closet? Those bastards!...."
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Josh White in the Washington Post (January 6, 2007):
A few hours later [after the first houses were cleared], Sharratt, Wuterich and Salinas approached a third and fourth house after noticing men they said were peering at them suspiciously.
The investigative reports show that what happened there is unclear. Iraqi witnesses said the Marines angrily separated men and women into two lines before marching the men into the fourth house and shooting them. The three Marines told investigators they were searching for the men they had seen and separated the women into a safe area before Wuterich and Sharratt entered the house.
Sharratt told investigators that he saw a man raise an AK-47 rifle as if to shoot him. Sharratt said his gun jammed, but he grabbed his 9mm handgun and shot the attacker. He told investigators he saw another man with a rifle and shot him and two others because he "felt threatened." Wuterich also shot at the men, he said.
What to expect at the hearing: There are no eyewitnesses other than LCpl. Sharratt and Sgt. Frank Wuterich to the events in the Ahmed house. Expect the prosecution to portray them as deranged killers based on hearsay evidence and testimony (it's unclear if prosecutors will push the "killed in a closet" story). And expect the media to have a field day.
Although two hearings have been completed, NCIS investigators will be center stage for the first time in the Sharratt hearing. Expect major challenges to that agency's coercive methods in gaining testimony against the accused.
In earlier hearings, the prosecution tipped its hand to its case against LCpl. Sharratt. Prosecutors will argue that the three Iraqis killed by LCpl. Sharratt (and a fourth by Sgt. Frank Wuterich) were slain "execution-style". They will also argue (according to various media leaks from "senior defense officials"), if any weapons were recovered from the house, they had not been fired recently. Finally, prosecutors will argue that the Haditha Marines applied "Fallujah rules" to Haditha and this was against the ROE.
The defense will argue that there was a firefight. Based on details in media reports, the incident involving LCpl. Sharratt and Sgt. Wuterich in this house would look something like this:
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For the official USMC advisory, click at the link.
Graviss was in the 3rd vehicle with Wuterich and the medic, Whitt. If I recall correctly, the medic, who was tending to Crossan and the other injured Marine, saw small arms fire, Salinas saw flashes, and the Iraqi soldier reported firing from everywhere. The official statement/press release from the USMC charges specifications acknowledged the Marines were taking fire.
Graviss responded, No, to a question on whether it was an ambush. Maybe he didn’t think an IED and small arms fire constituted an ambush? Did he actually ever say in court that he didn’t observe small arms fire?
We’ll have to wait and see what he said exactly. I think the facts are so well established that his testimony is just a curiosity.
This does not even mention the best part. NCIS lost the suitcase containing Jordanian passports and AK-47 that were seized by the Marines.
http://hlime.wordpress.com/tag/haditha/
yojoe
Thanks, yojoe! Welcome to Free Republic. I like you already.
By jingo, I believe I've spotted a trend.
In the Chessani hearing, Sgt Dela Cruz testified against Sgt Wuterich.
In the Stone hearing, Sgt. Justin Laughner testified against Lt Grayson.
Now, in the Sharratt hearing, Former-Marine Graviss is testifying against Sgt Wuterich (or whoever "he" is).
So the prosecution uses a little time in each hearing to give their "star" witnesses a warm-up. That's not going to help with Graviss. He just sounds like a dope.
You are right about the trends. The prosecutors try to get sound bites out about all the other Marines where there won’t be a defense expert to counteract these statements. In the writeup, the “He” sounds like it was referring to Dela Cruz. That’s why I was asking about who asked for this info from Graviss. I couldn’t understand why the prosecution would try to make Dela Cruz look bad.
Well, Graviss is a prosecution witness so I guess the prosecution asked him.
I don’t think “he” means Dela Cruz. We definitely have some pronoun trouble here.
BTW, Girl, do let me know if you spy anything about the Capt McConnell hearing. I believe his hearing is after LCpl Tatum’s but I can’t get confirmation.
Freepmail you’ll really enjoy!
No one knows who the heck he is.
So I'm trying again...
Theresa--Could you show this around and see if this is the right guy? (And, if you see Lt. Grayson, could you please get a better picture of him? Truth to tell, he looks a little light in the loafers here!).
David
What about the photo taken by Lucian Read? Does that one look more like the one you just posted? I’ve recently seen this latest one you just posted in #72, and I agree, it doesn’t look like the old one. Fact is, all three photos look like different guys.
Thanks, Red. I’m going to hold until we get some confirmation on the real pic.
He’s wearing googles in the Lucian Read photo which makes him look like a creepy insectman.
Also, it’s black and white so it looked exta strange with the others.
Let’s see if we can get confirm that we at least got the right guy this time!
A wise move, jaz! My record isn’t so hot!
I’ll take issue with your record not being too hot. :-)
Haditha case officer doubts prosecution claims of execution, San Diego Union Tribune, June 16, 2007
CAMP PENDLETON – The Marine officer who will help decide whether Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt should face trial expressed doubt yesterday about the prosecution's assertions that Sharratt killed defenseless Iraqis execution-style.
Lt. Col. Paul Ware said he was having “a great deal of difficulty understanding the prosecution's theory” that Sharratt and another Marine led four Iraqi men into a house, then executed them Nov. 19, 2005, in the city of Haditha. Ware is scheduled to make his recommendation on whether to court-martial Sharratt by the beginning of next month.
The prosecution's arguments aren't supported by forensic and other evidence, Ware said during the final day of Sharratt's preliminary hearing at Camp Pendleton.
His comments came a day after Sharratt – a member of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment – testified that he and Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich shot the Iraqis in self-defense after at least one of them pointed an AK-47 rifle in their direction.
Forensic evidence suggests that one of the Iraqis was shot while crouching behind a closet door, according to testimony given Thursday by a special agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
Also yesterday, the lead prosecutor, Maj. Daren Erikson, said he was unsure whether any Iraqi witnesses would be able or willing to come to the United States to testify should Sharratt be court-martialed.
In interviews last year with military investigators, relatives of the four dead Iraqis said Marines separated those men from the women and children, marched the men into a bedroom and killed them.
The deaths are part of an alleged massacre. Prosecutors contend that during the Haditha incident, members of Kilo Company killed 24 Iraqi civilians as an act of revenge after a fellow Marine was killed in a roadside bomb blast.
In addition to Sharratt and Wuterich, five other Marines face charges ranging from murder to dereliction of duty.
During closing arguments yesterday, one of Sharratt's lawyers said his client killed the Iraqis because they tried to kill him first. Sharratt “doesn't deserve a court-martial, but rather he deserves a medal,” attorney James Culp told Ware.
In contrast, the prosecution cited testimony from several Marines who said Sharratt admitted lying to investigators about what happened that day. Erikson said the evidence reveals that Sharratt and Wuterich took the four men “into a back room, took their weapons under control, then after that they were killed.”
Once Ware makes his recommendation concerning a trial, the final decision rests with Lt. Gen. James Mattis, commander of the Camp Pendleton-based 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.
If Sharratt is court-martialed and convicted of murder, he faces life in prison and a dishonorable discharge.
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