Accused Haditha Marine passed polygraph test
North County Times, June 12, 2007
CAMP PENDLETON ---- A lance corporal charged with murder in the death of three Iraqi brothers in 2005 passed a polygraph examination when asked whether he was being truthful when he said the first man he shot inside a home was holding an AK-47 assault rifle, according to testimony heard this morning.
The test administered last spring showed there was no apparent deception in the account provided by Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt, said Naval Criminal Investigative Service Special Agent Nayda Mannle.
Sharratt is charged with three counts of unpremeditated murder for his role in the deaths of two dozen Iraqi civilians following a roadside bombing on the morning of Nov. 19, 2005. The 22-year-old rifleman from the base's 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment could face life in prison if ordered to trial and convicted.
Mannle's testimony came on the second day of Sharratt's hearing. She eventually became the lead agent for the Haditha investigation, which resulted in Sharratt and two other enlisted men from the battalion facing homicide charges and three of its officers being charged with dereliction of duty for failing to investigate the incident.
While acknowledging that the polygraph did not indicate that Sharratt's account to investigators was deceptive, Mannle also testified that the account the Marines gave of what happened when four homes were stormed by the Marines did not match what some family members of the slain Iraqis said occurred.
Sharratt is accused of killing the three brothers inside the last of four homes that were assaulted by Marines after a roadside bombing that killed a lance corporal and injured two others.
His attorneys are trying to show inconsistencies in the investigation, focusing many of their questions on why government agents did not pursue full background reports on the men who died inside the fourth home, particularly one man who worked on the Jordanian border and may have had several Jordanian passports in his possession.
Mannle said that probably should have been done and agreed that agents can still try to piece that information together. But she also said that none of the 24 victims who died in Haditha had any known ties to the insurgency.
"We ran them through the database and all came up as negative for insurgents," she said during telephonic testimony from an office in the Pentagon.
The defense also is trying to show that forensic evidence taken from a bedroom where men died inside the fourth house is inconsistent with an account given by those men's surviving family members, who told investigators the men were herded into that room and executed in rapid succession.
For a full report on Tuesday's court proceedings, see Wednesday's North County Times.
Accounts differ on Haditha slayings
San Diego Union Tribune, June 13, 2007
Prosecutors and defense attorneys yesterday sketched sharply contrasting versions of what happened Nov. 19, 2005, the day Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt killed three brothers in Haditha, Iraq.
The accounts emerged during the second day of a pretrial hearing at Camp Pendleton to help decide whether Sharratt should face court-martial.
“One scenario describes what appears to be a proper application of force,” Lt. Col. Paul Ware, the Marine lawyer presiding over the hearing, said during questioning of a witness. “The other, taken at face value, amounts to an execution.”
Sharratt is charged with three counts of unpremeditated murder for shooting Jasib, Kahtan, and Jamal Aiad Ahmed. The leader of his squad, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, allegedly executed a fourth Ahmed brother.
Wuterich attended yesterday's hearing, as did Sharratt's parents, Darryl and Theresa Sharratt of Canonsburg, Pa.
The Ahmeds were among two dozen Iraqis killed during the Haditha incident. In all, the deaths took place over several hours after a roadside bomb struck a convoy carrying members of Wuterich's platoon, killing one Marine and wounding two others.
Sharratt, Wuterich and a third enlisted Marine from Camp Pendleton could be sentenced to life in prison for their actions that day. In addition, four officers are accused of not properly investigating the killings.
Yesterday's witnesses included Mark Platt and Nayda Mannle, special agents for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The agents interviewed the Ahmed brothers' wives and children in late March and early April 2006.
Through a translator, the Iraqis told Platt and Mannle how several Marines came to their two-house compound, separated four men from the women and children, marched the men into a bedroom and killed them.
Defense attorneys yesterday pointed to statements from Sharratt and two other Marines indicating that they had heard small-arms fire from one of the Ahmed houses. When the Marines burst into the bedroom in question, according to the statements, they found several men pointing rifles at them and had no choice but to shoot first.
During his time on the stand, Platt described finding blood stains in the doorway, on the walls and on furniture inside the bedroom. He also testified about seeing bullet fragments that seemed to come from U.S. military weapons.
Mannle said the Ahmed family members' accounts seemed consistent and truthful.
Sharratt's attorneys hammered at what they viewed as omissions and shortcomings by the naval investigators. During cross-examination, Mannle acknowledged that Sharratt had passed a polygraph exam concerning whether any of the Ahmed brothers pointed a rifle at him.
She also said time constraints prompted by the extreme danger to foreigners in Haditha prevented her from separating the Ahmed family members before questioning them, which is standard procedure in crime investigations.
In addition, Mannle confirmed that Marines seized several AK-47 rifles and a suitcase allegedly containing Jordanian passports from the Ahmed compound the day of the killings. She said her agency wasn't able to track down these items, which might have linked the Ahmed brothers to insurgent activity.