Posted on 10/06/2006 10:43:07 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
CAMP PENDLETON ---- A Navy corpsman pleaded guilty this morning to two charges for his role in the killing of a 52-year-old civilian in the Iraqi village of Hamdania last spring.
Petty Officer 3rd Class Melson Bacos pleaded guilty to conspiracy and kidnapping during a court-martial conducted in a base courtroom before Marine Col. Steven Folsom. Charges of premeditated murder and related offenses were dropped in exchange for the guilty pleas.
Bacos is the first of the eight troops from 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment's Kilo Company to plead guilty to an offense arising out of the April 26 slaying of Hashim Ibrahim Awad. As part of his plea deal, the 21-year-old native of Franklin, Wis., agreed to testify against seven Marines also charged in the case.
Under questioning from Folsom, Bacos described how a plan devised under the direction of squad Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III targeted a man named Saleh Gowad, whom Bacos said was a known insurgent who had been arrested and released by authorities three times.
The plan was hatched in a palm grove in Hamdania around sunset on April 25 while the squad was on patrol, Bacos said, adding he initially did not believe the men would actually do what was being suggested.
If Gowad wasn't home, Bacos said the plan was to go to another house and take another individual. That led the squad to Awad's home, Bacos said.
Each of the accused agreed to the plan by saying "I'm in" or "let's do it," Bacos told the judge.
Bacos acknowledged his role in the plan was to help steal an AK-47 assault rifle and shovel, and to help seize Awad after it was determined that Gowad ---- the squad's original target ---- wasn't home.
He also admitted firing rounds from the AK-47 into the air after Awad had been bound and shot multiple times. The shell casings from the rounds he fired were intended to make it appear that Awad was planting a roadside bomb when he was killed, Bacos said.
The kidnapping and killing occurred around 1:30 a.m., after Bacos and two of his squad mates stole the AK-47 and a shovel and then went to Awad's house and seized him, he told the judge.
Bacos said Cpl. Trent Thomas and Cpl. Marshall Magincalda Jr. emerged from a house with Awad.
When asked by Folsom why, Bacos said Hutchins had directed another be seized.
"If we could not get Saleh Gowad, we would find someone else," Bacos said.
At midmorning, Bacos was continuing his account of what happened. Under terms of the plea deal, it is expected that Bacos will serve no more than 12 months in custody.
His wife, Heather and his father, Jessie, sat in the first row of seats behind the corpsman, who was dressed in his summer white Navy uniform.
Until this morning, the accused stood together for five months, each denying through attorneys and family members that they had done anything wrong despite being charged with premeditated murder and other offenses in the death of an Iraqi man.
Bacos and another of the accused, Pfc. John Jodka III, who was raised in Encinitas, have been moved from the Camp Pendleton brig to the brig at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, a signal that a plea deal may also be in the works for Jodka.
Military law experts have previously said they believed it was just a matter of time before one of the accused men took a plea deal.
Kathleen Duignan of the Institute of Military Justice in Washington said Thursday that the plea deal creates new challenges for attorneys defending the other men.
"It makes it much more difficult for the defense counsel," she said in a telephone interview. "The best part for the defense from the beginning of this case was that the men were standing together, and now that has gone away."
The defense attorneys have an obligation to get the best deal they can for their clients if the facts indicate they are likely to be convicted, she said.
"I think you'll see more deals after this, probably from a couple of the others who are less culpable."
The case continues to attract widespread media attention. More than a dozen reporters and numerous camera crews were covering Friday's proceedings, which were broadcast via closed-circuit television into a more than $700,000 media center the Marine Corps established this summer in a former barracks adjacent to the building housing the courtroom.
Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Melson J. Bacos, center, is escorted Friday morning into his court-martial hearing by his defense attorneys, Marine Corps Lt. Col. Scott Jack, left, civilian defense counsel Jeremiah Sullivan, right, and Navy Lt. Jonathan Stephens, back left, held at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base.
Sad, war is hell and these guys did a bad thing AND got caught.
He is not a Marine.
Correct on the title, should have said Pendleton 8 Corpsman or such, tho some might say that Corpsman in the field are parts of the units they live and work with.
It's a damn shame we have to send off our fine young men off in harm's way and see them come back to this fate.
Gee, if they could only keep from kidnapping and murdering people maybe things would work out better.
So this guy gets a deal to only spend 12 months in prison for pre-meditated murder in return for pimping on his buddies
Nice deal if you can get it. Too bad he cant spend that 12 months in the General population with the guys he pimped on.
I would say that after spending months under confinement, with prosecution working on him night and day, with a deal of 12 months for 1st degree murder and con spiring to commit murder, that his testimony is shady at best.
Now the prosecution hopes to use his testimony to break the rest.
These guys may indeed be guilty, but it seems to me they are guilty of doing what the courtsover there couldnt get done, taking out a killer who beat the rap. A killer who was a known insurgent arrested 3 times and turned loose. Not exactly legal of course, but understandable when you have lost friends to people just like him.
But, they're BRAVE HEROES! The t-shirt says so!
If you read the article, they couldn't get the first guy they were after (who probably was an insurgent), so they decided to go grab this guy (who may not have been one at all).
Way to go, guys, making us look like the Germans on Kristallnacht.
they flipped him - held him in handcuffs 23 hours a day until he broke, and was willing to say anything for a plea deal.
the cabal inside the pentagon to convict these guys is very strong, and there is no check to their power to do so apparently. the left wants a conviction here, at any cost.
The lawyer on the right was on Savage's show more than once, and Savage helped raise money for the snitch and the aforementioned lawyer. Interesting.
See Post #2.
Name names.
they are being railroaded.
if I knew names, I would.
tell me the names of the lawyers who blocked able danger?
savage raised that money when they were all standing together, he had no way to know whether someone was going to flip in exchange for the plea deal.
How can a group of people get together (conspire) and go out and kill someone - be railroaded? - I am a former Marine and not happy with any aspect of this.
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