Posted on 06/16/2007 8:57:41 PM PDT by RedRover
Key testimony and arguments
Day One / Monday, June 11
Quote from opening statements: "The forensics in this case dispel the notion that this was an execution. He's not a murderer. Rather, he's extremely brave." -- Gary Myers, civilian defense attorney
[Source: Associated Press]
____________________________
SSgt. Justin Laughner
HET asset with 2nd CI HUMINT Co. The staff sergeant was one of two HET assets assigned to Kilo Co. on November 19, 2005.
There was a great deal of media coverage for SSgt. Laughner's testimony in the Lt. Col. Chessani hearing when he said he felt pressured by Lt. Grayson to erase photographs from his hard drive.
But there was no coverage at all for his testimony on day one of the LCpl. Sharratt hearing. Laughner's testimony matched his deposition--leaked to the Washington Post on August 26, 2006.
Two Iraqi witnesses (a woman and a boy) said they heard well spaced shots from house number four. The prosecution asked SSgt. Laughner if he heard the shots. The staff sergeant said no.
A photo of one of the bodies was introduced as evidence. The staff sergeant couldn't explain a bullet hole in one of the Iraqi's hands. Gary Myers surmised the bullet hole in the hand and the hole in an Iraqi's cheek matched the forensic evidence that he was holding an AK-47 in firing position. SSgt. Laughner said it made sense.
____________________________
Amir al-Kaysey
Iraqi-born translator (who now lives in New York) who took depositions for the prosecution in Haditha.
The defense suggested that an Iraqi attorney, Khaled Salem Rsayef, representing all of the Haditha victims' families might have prodded them to falsely accuse the Marines of murder.
The defense also suggested that al-Kaysey and the prosecutors, who were dressed in military uniform, could have intimidated the Ahmed family members into agreeing with their version of the Haditha incident.
[Sources: Associated Press, San Diego Union Tribune, North County Times, and unpublished reports from the hearing]
____________________________
Barak A. Salmoni, PhD
Deputy director of the Marine Center for Advanced Operational Cultural Learning in Virginia and an expert on Middle East culture.
[Sources: San Diego Union Tribune, North County Times]
____________________________
Day Two / Tuesday, June 12
Naval Criminal Investigative Service Special Agent Nayda Mannle
Lead agent for the Haditha investigation.
From the New York Times:
Ms. Mannle, the special agent, said her team arrived at the Marine base near Haditha in March 2006. Marines who escorted the team members to the scene told them they would have only about an hour to conduct interviews and collect evidence.
When the convoy approached the home where four men had been killed, Ms. Mannle recalled, she heard women inside scream in fear. Because of time and security concerns, she said, she had interviewed six family members at once, gathering testimony that would form the case against Corporal Sharratt.
James D. Culp, a civilian lawyer defending LCpl. Sharratt, suggested that group interviews had been contradictory to everything you have been taught. Ms. Mannle said she did not have time to conduct separate interviews or review her notes before the Marines said it was time to leave.
She did not record the interview, she said, because she could not find a recorder, but when pressed by Mr. Culp, she said she never sought to buy one from the post exchange.
An N.C.I.S. spokesman, Ed Buice, said in an e-mail message that no federal law enforcement agency regularly taped interviews.
Interestingly, according to a hearing observer, SA Mannle testified that she was called into house number four by NCIS agent, Michael S. Maloney. Her conversation with Maloney was recorded because he had a recorder.
In the recorded conversation in house number four, SA Mannle said the story given her by the Iraqis in house number three didn't coincide with the Marines' account. She told Maloney that the women and boy said the men in house number four were executed.
SA Maloney told her that what the women and boy told her didn't fit the forensic evidence he was collecting. Maloney told her (he was taping the conversation) that the Marines were not in control of the room and there were four distinct blood groupings that show where the men were killed. They were not executed.
The IO was able to listen to this recording in open court.
Quote of the day: "As the Marines hustled investigators from the home, a roadside bomb blew up nearby, Ms. Mannle said." -- The New York Times
[Sources: North County Times, San Diego Union Tribune, New York Times, and unpublished reports from the hearing]
____________________________
Naval Criminal Investigative Service Special Agent Mark Platt
Office of Special Projects, NCIS. Participated in a death scene reconstruction of house number four for which SA Michael Maloney prepared the final Forensic Reconstruction Report.
According to an observer at the hearing:
In response to defense questioning about exculpatory evidence, Mark Platt said repeatedly that he wasn't looking for exculpatory evidence. He was following a script that was laid out by his superiors.
James Culp asked him about the suitcase Cpl. Salinas, LCpl. Sharratt and Sgt. Wuterich said they recovered. Where is the suitcase and the money and passports? Platt said since he didn't find a suitcase and the NCIS didn't have it.
Culp blasted him. Two of the women who were interviewed by Mannle confirmed the Marines took the suitcase. The Marines said there was a suitcase with money and passports, where is the suitcase? Platt responded that his bosses told him what to do and that was what he did.
Finally Culp asked, you said you came to Haditha with no pre-conceived judgments on what happened, right?
Platt said he didn't.
Culp said you read reports from your superiors, didn't you?
Platt said yes.
Culp said you knew about the suitcase, you knew about the AK's, didn't you?
Platt said yes.
Culp asked him, Why didn't you ask these women about the occupations of the men, what was in the suitcase and what about the AKs?
Platt answered he didn't think it would be right to grill these women right after their relatives were murdered.
A hush filled the courtroom.
Jim Culp said, and you say you didn't have any pre-conceived judgments on what happened, HOW CAN YOU SAY THESE IRAQIS WERE MURDERED?
[Sources: San Diego Union Tribune, New York Times, and unpublished reports from the hearing]
____________________________
Cpl. Robert Stafford
Armory Custodian for Kilo Co.
[Source: unpublished reports from the hearing]
____________________________
Quote of the day: One scenario describes what appears to be a proper application of force. The other, taken at face value, amounts to an execution. -- Investigating Officer, Lt. Col. Paul Ware, on the conflicting Iraqi and Marine accounts.
____________________________
Day Three / Wednesday, June 13
LCpl. James Prentice
Kilo Co. Marine, testifying from Iraq (did not take part in the action at the ambush site).
According to the North County Times
But under questioning from defense attorney Jim Culp, Prentice said he never told the investigators that Sharratt had "made up" that story, suggesting those words were inserted into his statement by agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
[Source: San Diego Union Tribune, North County Times, and unpublished reports from the hearing]
____________________________
Sgt. Frank Wolf
Kilo Co. Marine, testifying from Iraq (did not take part in the action at the ambush site).
[Source: North County Times]
____________________________
Sgt. Travis Fields
Taught the battalion's troops the rules of engagement. He was called by the Investigating Officer, Lt. Col. Ware.
According to the North County Times:
"Don't hesitate," Fields said he taught the Marines prior to the unit being deployed to Haditha in September 2005. "It's a judgement call."
Fields said he told the troops that any time someone was pointing a weapon at a Marine or a Marine believed that they were in imminent danger, the rules of engagement allowed them to shoot, Fields said.
But he said situations such as the one encountered by Sharratt were never specifically addressed.
"They were not trained to anticipate meeting someone inside a home with a weapon," Field said.
[Source: North County Times]
____________________________
Day Four / Thursday, June 14
Trent Graviss
Former lance corporal and member of Kilo Co. Present at the ambush site.
[Source: Associated Press]
____________________________
Naval Criminal Investigative Service Special Agent Michael S. Maloney
Senior Forensic, NCISRA. Prepared the final Forensic Reconstruction Report of house number four.
Lt. Col. Elizabeth A. Rouse
An Air Force pathologist.
According to the New York Times:
Government forensic experts testified at a military hearing here Thursday that four Iraqi men killed by Marines in Haditha in 2005 appeared to have been shot in the head from at least a few feet away, undercutting prosecutors argument that the men had been executed by two Marine infantrymen....
Thursdays testimony, based on an analysis of photographs of the four bodies, came from Lt. Col. Elizabeth A. Rouse, an Air Force pathologist who described the victims fatal injuries, and from Special Agent Michael S. Maloney, a forensic consultant from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service who analyzed the room of the Haditha home where the men were killed....
Dr. Rouse said that none of the bullet wounds to the four bodies, which had all been shot in the head, appeared to come from shots fired closer than two feet away. Her testimony supported defense arguments that Corporal Sharratt had shot the men in a cramped, darkened bedroom in self-defense and not execution style.
But Special Agent Maloney, in a forensic report last year, concluded from blood spatter and bullet trajectories that two Iraqi men were shot while crouched or sitting one against a wall, the other inside a closed closet.
In his testimony here Thursday, he reasserted those conclusions under questioning by a military prosecutor. But minutes later, pressed by a lawyer for Corporal Sharratt, Special Agent Maloney conceded that it was just as possible that at least one of the men had been moving in Corporal Sharratts general direction, or diving toward a closet that may have contained a gun, when he was fatally shot in the head.
____________________________
Day Five / Friday, June 15
LCpl. Justin Sharratt
The accused gave unsworn testimony in his defense.
[Source: Associated Press]
____________________________
Lt. Col. Paul Ware
Investigating officer.
From the North County Times:
The officer in charge of a military hearing expressed serious doubts Friday about the government's prosecution of Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt....
Lt. Col. Paul Ware, who will recommend whether to send Sharratt to trial, challenged the prosecution, saying the government's theory of the case do not warrant the three counts of unpremeditated murder filed against Sharratt in December.
"The account you want me to believe does not support unpremeditated murder," Ware told the lead prosecutor, Maj. Daren Erickson. "Your theories don't match the reason you say we should go to trial."....
Ware also suggested he is inclined to believe Sharratt, who maintains the first two men he shot were pointing AK-47 rifles at him, and that the killings were carried out in self-defense.
"To me it seems the most important issue is whether the Marines perceived a hostile threat," Ware said. "It comes down to credibility to determine if this case should go to trial."
Prosecutors filed charges against Sharratt based on interviews with relatives of the slain men, who contended they did not have any weapons and were herded into the room and shot in rapid succession.
In a statement he read to Ware on Thursday, Sharratt said that story is false and that the killings stemmed from his belief his life was in danger.
"I would not change any of the decisions I made that afternoon," Sharratt said.
Prosecutors agreed Friday that the case centers solely on the competing versions of events. The discrepancy among accounts is enough to warrant the case going to trial, Erickson told Ware.
"The seminal issue in this case is did the Iraqis have AK-47s?" Erickson said. "The issues in this case are best resolved before a trier of fact."
Ware seemed disinclined to order a trial, however, questioning whether any Iraqis would be willing to come to the U.S. to testify at trial if one is ordered.
Even so, Ware said forensic evidence presented by agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service who found multiple bullet holes in the walls and curtains of the room does not suggest execution-style killings.
"What the evidence points to is that the version of the Iraqis isn't really supported," Ware said.
And in closing...
From the North County Times:
Defense attorney James Culp centered his summation, which is similar to a closing argument, on the forensic evidence, saying it fully supports Sharratt's account. The Marine told Ware on Thursday that he emptied his 9mm pistol in the process of shooting the three men. When his clip was emptied, Wuterich followed into the room, shooting a fourth man with his M-16 rifle.
"The most important element is the forensics," Culp said. "The evidence completely corroborates Lance Cpl. Sharratt's story."
Culp also suggested that the prosecution of his client is colored by politics surrounding the civilian deaths in Haditha, which generated worldwide condemnation when first reported by Time magazine in March 2006. Until then, the Marine Corps maintained the civilians died when caught up in a bombing and in crossfire from a small-arms attack on the troops.
"This is a new kind of war, and this case is a result of the new kind of warfare," Culp said, referring to insurgents who do not wear uniforms and mix within the civilian population. "There's also politics involved here, and the politics of the war is tearing at this nation."....
Culp suggested Sharratt was unfairly lumped into the cases involving the other civilian deaths.
"He charged into that room at great risk to his own safety and killed those men before they killed him. He deserves a medal," the attorney said.
Ware said he will issue his recommendation about whether to send Sharratt to trial to Lt. Gen. James Mattis by July 1. Mattis is in charge of the case as head of Marine forces in the Middle East. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the general can accept or reject the hearing officer's recommendation.
May justice prevail for all the Haditha Marines.
Great summary and I hope the final ending comes Monday for the Sharratts.
Red, you are sumpthin’ else!
Signing off...sleep tight and don’t let the Nifongs bite.
Excellent!
Good stuff!
WOW Red - those statements from the courtroom observer are incredible. I love the fact that Mannle’s conversation was recorded. Great job as always.
Thank you so much for putting this together. I have been unable to keep as close an eye on this as I would have liked although I have been praying that justice prevails and these men are exonerated. I will keep praying that this nightmare is soon over for these brave marines and their families... Thanks again for the info. — Great Job!
Outstanding!!
Excellent job. Thank you!
I’m thinking back over this
and wondering what the NCIS reaction would have been if the small arms fire had hit one of them and the IED that blew and cut their investigation short had blown up under their vehicle........
I’m wondering how the NCIS agents would have wanted the Marines defending their position to do so. I am certain they would naturally have needed to call a squad council meeting to deliberate a checklist per that o-so-holy-and-righteous Rule of Law to determine ‘reasonable’ danger prior to any action necessary to defend and protect life and limb of NCIS agents.
An incident like that would have been a good real-time test of these charges AND the checklist completion time for determination of reasonable danger.
I know that certain quals are timed, I propose “the checklist” be issued to every Marine at boot camp, that they meet the qual time before graduation, and that this take precedence over marksmanship quals.
/sarc
Seems the only liars in this Me Lie is PravdABDNC and Turda!
Pray for W and Our Marines
EXCELLENT!!
Thanks for the summary Red.
It’s obvious that there is nothing here to suggest our guys did anything wrong. Charges against all of them should be dropped after the testimony heard in this hearing.
Let justice be served. Let these Marines be exonerated. Every one of them.
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