You know, lily, I’m starting to wonder if either of the two Marines who claimed to have taken photos were ever ordered to do so. These two Marines claim they were ordered, it’s never been confirmed by the Marines. Briones had quite a few legal problems to deal with the day he came back stateside. How convenient to latch on to the Haditha PTSD defense. We don’t know if he even took any photos, since he said they were erased.
But someone did. Someone e-mailed one of these photos back stateside.
The other guy also claims he was ordered, thought it was really bad, and turned over whatever he had to investigators later. I’m wondering if this “being ordered to take photos” business is just CYA for the fact that they got caught with personal photos of the dead and were emailing them back home and sharing them.
Here’s the latest on Briones from the Hanford Sentinel, April 11, 2007. He was sentenced to two years, and ordered to pay $110,000 restitution for the damages he caused in April, 2006. http://www.hanfordsentinel.com/articles/2007/04/11/news/daily01.txt And now he’s got even more troubles.
From the article, ...” Hours later, Camp Pendleton officials formally released a slew of charges against Briones, which include rape, stealing government property, and three other violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, said Marine spokesman Cpl. Alec Kleinsmith.
The sexual assault charges originate from the purported rape of a young woman near Camp Pendleton in July 2006. Briones, 21, is also accused of mailing firearms during a tour of duty in Iraq, and deceiving the U.S. Postal Service in the process.
During that same tour of duty, Briones allegedly stole government-issued optical equipment worth approximately $3,800, Kleinsmith said. “
And finally, from the article, ...”Camp Pendleton representative Lt. Esteban Zickers said Briones is not on the witness list in the trials of the Marines accused of carrying out the killings.”
Wonder why, if he was allegedly part of the reporting process and could describe what he saw and supposedly took photos?
Let me take a moment to admire your work....WOW!
Wonder if any of this ties in to Lt. Grayson’s charges? He was an intelligence officer. I don’t know about the intelligence structure, but assume (maybe wrongly) that he reported to Capt Dinsmore.
If memory serves, NCIS accused him of failing to turn over photographic evidence.
It makes more sense for civilian affairs (Maj. Hyatt) or the S-2 (Capt Dinsmore) to be involved with picture taking than random low level Marines.
There was a detail in the reporting of Hyatt’s testimony that they ran out of body bags and had to use trash bags instead. No mention of who was doing the bagging.