Posted on 08/09/2006 8:11:43 AM PDT by TexKat
BAGHDAD (AFP) - A US military hearing to determine whether to court martial a group of soldiers for the rape and murder of a teenage Iraqi girl and the slaughter of her family was set to wrap up proceedings.
Specialist James Barker, Sergeant Paul Cortez and Privates Bryan Howard and Jesse Spielman have been accused of taking varying roles in a massacre in a town south of Baghdad on March 12.
Private Steven Green, described by the defence as the ring-leader, has been charged with rape and murder and will stand trial in a civilian court in the US state of Kentucky, after being discharged from the army for "personality disorder".
He has pleaded not guilty.
The military hearing will also decide whether to charge Sergeant Anthony Yribe with dereliction of duty for failing to report what he later found out about the rape and killings.
On Tuesday, in their closing arguments after three days of legal debate, the military prosecutors charged that the crime was a result of a detailed plan by the soldiers.
Prosecutor Captain Alex Picklands dismissed defence arguments that the killings could be attributed to the stressful conditions at the soldiers' checkpoint in Mahmudiyah.
"They gathered together over cards and booze and came up with a plan to rape and murder that little girl," he said.
"Murder not war. Rape not war. That's what we are here talking about today. Not all that business about cold food, checkpoints, personnel assignments. Cold food didn't kill that family," he told the panel.
"Personnel assignments didn't rape and murder that 14-year-old little girl."
Picklands said the soldiers knew the girl as they had seen her on previous patrols.
"She was young and attractive. They knew her because they had seen her on a previous patrol. She was close. She was vulnerable," the prosecutor said.
Defence lawyers however, strove to pin the largest part of the blame for what happened on Green.
"Green, he's the one who should be facing capital murder," David Sheldon, counsel for Barker, said. "These soldiers here don't deserve that, not a one of them."
"When you put an individual like that in a stressful situation, he becomes a canister of gas waiting to explode," Sheldon said, referring to Green.
"There was no meeting of the minds. That was a plan that Green executed and the soldiers are not responsible."
Closing arguments are expected to conclude Wednesday.
Mahmoudiya Ping
"These soldiers are not robots," said defense attorney Capt. Elizabeth Walker. "They are humans with emotions, and the command structure hung them out to dry."
Earlier, echoing testimony from previous days, soldiers serving alongside the accused troops testified that fear and relentless violence had driven the soldiers to mix painkillers, cough syrup and Iraqi whiskey.
Final defense arguments are expected to continue today, after which the tribunal's investigating officer will determine whether the five men will face a court-martial.
Green, whom the Army allowed to enlist on “moral waivers” because he had a criminal record for minor offenses, was discharged as a private in May after a psychiatric evaluation. He is in custody in Kentucky, where he faces federal rape and murder charges. He has pleaded not guilty.
Interesting. Sounds like the defense is only trying to get their guys off from murder charges, but have concluded the murders as described were accurate.
If that is accurate, and I'm not positive it is because does not do its job, then these guys will be toast.
But since apparetnly, none of the soldiers themselves testified, I'll reserve judgement until I hear how they present themselves in the court martial.
Mahmoudiya pinglist--probably the last ping from me, since TexKat has started one too. No point in two such lists. If you want on TexKat's, please contact her.
Ben Matlock alert.
Who?
If any of these allegations are true, then the offenders should be tried and if found guilty receive the appropriate punishment.
What this shows though is that it is a very small percentage of the military that commits crimes, unlike the general population where the crime rate is higher.
OK. Now that I know who you were talking about; WHAT were you talking about? LOL
If this guy really did this thing, it wasn't combat that broke him. He was broken when he got there.
If you ever watched the show, Ben would always find 'something' to exonerate his client. I'm just suggesting that there is more to this story than the flash headline of rape-murder.
Thank you for the ping.
I'm still not getting worked up one way or the other based on selective media coverage.
However, I repeat that someone has some 'splainin' to do as to how a SGT and SPC would do the bidding of a Private.
What seems to be getting nasty is the defense lawyers for the 4 alleged accomplices are trying to point a finger at Green to deflect any guilt from their clients. I believe this same lawyer Sheldon was reported to have requested a new hearing, based on a quibble he has with one of the other defense lawyers, as well.
If the hearing is already this chaotic, imagine the trial(s).
True. They should be prosecuted. However, the men and women are held to a higher, regimented standard.
They, like police are trained to a higher standard & should hold themselves to a higher standard. I am very disturbed that they would blame their actions on the stresses. As I am sure they are unimaginable to us at home.
Not to compare apples to oranges, but the man who goes & commits mass murder does not dodge the chair because in his "world" there are stresses very real to him. So I'm behind the courts with this one. They should be judged by the military courts. I don't want to see them fry either, as they have put their lives on the line for their countries beliefs & laws
Well, that's not the reason that Green stated he joined. Green said he joined because he "wanted to kill somebody."
Andrew Tilghman was a reporter embedded with this unit for Stars and Stripes during 9 months this winter, and he wrote about his February interview with Green. Green stated at that time - a month before this murder of the girl and her family - that, "" I came over here because I wanted to kill people. The truth is, it wasn't all I thought it was cracked up to be. I mean, I thought killing somebody would be this life-changing experience. And then I did it, and I was like, 'All right, whatever.' I shot a guy who wouldn't stop when we were out at a traffic checkpoint and it was nothing. Over here, killing people is like squashing an ant. I mean, you kill somebody and it's like 'All right, let's go get some pizza.' "
(Of course, in this case, it wasn't pizza, it was chicken wings.)
What did Tilghman think about Green's statement?
At the time, the soldier's matter-of-fact manner struck me chiefly as a rare example of honesty. I was on a nine-month assignment as an embedded reporter in Iraq, spending much of my time with grunts like him -- mostly young (and immature) small-town kids who sign up for a job as killers, lured by some gut-level desire for excitement and adventure. This was not the first group I had run into that was full of young men who shared a dark sense of humor and were clearly desensitized to death. I thought this soldier was just one of the exceptions who wasn't afraid to say what he really thought...
We know that the Pentagon has lowered the educational levels required for enlistment. They're letting in guys with criminal records who wouldn't have gotten in before. Apparently they aren't screening hard enough for the trigger-happy and casually violent, if what Tilghman says is the case.
I have no sympathy for these guys. Locals in the neighborhood knew that this platoon was responsible for the murders, and Iraqi men who live by the law of clans and revenge-killing did just that - murdering two other soldiers from the platoon and mutilating their bodies in a barbaric way. If these men on trial were "trained to a higher standard", then they should have thought about the peril they were placing their fellow soldiers in, even if they gave no thought to the lives of the civilians. Instead, they thought they could get away with it, and Tucker and Menchaca paid with their lives.
It was the murders of Tucker and Menchaca that revealed this incident to the American authorities anyway. Some soldiers in the platoon felt so guilty about the rape/killling being the reason that their comrades were subsequently killed that they spilled the beans.
First of all, the kidnappers and murderers of Menchaca and Tucker did not claim retribution until after the story hit the media - AFTER they had killed our soldiers. It was the media that suggested it and then the terrorists picked up the meme.
Secondly the piece in the WaPo was nothing more than someone jumping on the Mahmoudiya bandwagon. If he was so concerned about the comments from Green, why didn't he write about them sooner. Besides "kids who sign up to be killers" reveals Tilghman's true colors.
If convicted, I hope these guys receive the stiffest penalty allowed. BUT I will not jump in judgment based on a bunch of articles written by Ryan Lenz.
Interesting post....Thanks for the link.
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