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.
The moral of the story: don't trust the lawyer.
In other words, you don't know jack-s*** about the case, but you feel free to offer unsubstantiated speculation as fact.
tell me the names of the lawyers who blocked able danger?
I'm not the one saying anything about Able Danger. You are. So you need to supply those names, or you need to admit that you don't know jack-s*** about that one, either.
Fine, it's not on the t-shirt, it's on the link to donate. That said, they're officially "brave Americans" because someone put up a PayPal site.
They're being railroaded because they didn't actually kill a human being, just an untermensch.
how do you know if any of that is true?
the military is apparently happy to use the same techniques here they use at mob trials - give someone a pass, and he'll tell you anything you want about anyone you want. that passes for "justice" in RICO trials routinely, but that tactic should not be allowed in a military trial, where a man is held in handcuffs 23 hours a day to break him down, and make him more willing to flip for a plea deal.
I know the case had been heavily politicized, and to say there aren't forces inside the military establishment that want to see these guys convicted at any cost - is an insane argument to make, and that's the position you've taken.
don't bother replying to me again.
its hard to say. I don't imagine the lawyer himself is the main person forcing this deal - he is doing what his client wants, and if you read the articles about how these men were held, and this particular fellow being separated from his wife and new baby - I would break too.
And you know this because . . . (this is your cue to provide specific evidence, such as documents, statements by key participants, et cetera, that demonstrate political involvement).
and to say there aren't forces inside the military establishment that want to see these guys convicted at any cost - is an insane argument to make, and that's the position you've taken.
I haven't taken that one at all. I'm saying that you need to provide evidence to support your claim that a powerful "cabal" (YOUR word, not mine) is railroading objectively innocent (YOUR claim, not mine) Marines.
So, present your evidence.
Put down the crack pipe and the Mad Dog 20/20 before you post, OK?
To you a Pay Pal site equals Brave Americans?
The link describes these men as "Brave Americans."
Well, one of them has just confessed to being an accessory to murder.
the Pentagon even built a $700,000 "media center" to serve as a comfortable place for the press to watch this so-called "trial". A total disgrace, that shows you where their priorities are. Its going to be a "show trial" for them.
He's got a beautiful future, NOT.
I wish they weren't guilty. However, it's pretty obvious that they are.
Wish into one hand; excrete into the other; examine which one fills up first.
That media center was on Camp Pendleton MILCON POM long before we invaded Iraq.
"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"
the article says it was established "this summer".
Yet Michael Weiner was shooting his mouth off for months about how he knew, just knew that every man was innocent. Pure as the driven snow. I mean they are Marines fighting over in Iraq, they can do no wrong. If it's proven that what they are accused of is true, they should be hanged, all of them. Nothing better than Waffen SS scum during WW2. But Weiner is the conservative radio talkshow version of the villiage idiot anyway, so why take anything he says seriously.
"charging someone with murder in this place is like giving out speeding tickets at the indy 500".
Who is they?
Where does the buck stop?
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