Posted on 02/17/2007 6:58:31 PM PST by KantianBurke
CAMP PENDLETON, California (CNN) -- A U.S. Marine will serve no more than eight years in prison in connection with the killing of an Iraqi civilian, a Marine Corps spokesman said Saturday.
Marine Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington was sentenced to 14 years' confinement but will serve no more than eight under a plea agreement, Marine spokesman Sean Gibson told CNN.
Pennington pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges regarding the death of Hashim Ibrahim Awad, 52, in Hamdaniya, west of Baghdad.
Pennington was among a group of seven Marines and a Navy medic charged in Awad's death. He and two other Marines were ordered to stand trial in October.
Pennington agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit premeditated murder and kidnapping, and to a kidnapping charge. Other charges he faced were dismissed at sentencing.
He was given credit for the 340 days he served in pretrial confinement, Gibson said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Keeping score, are you?
Yes, it was a rude awakening this morning. It is a such a shame to see our Marines being prosecuted with the full force and authority of our government, but expect the defenedants to scrape together their own defense funds. Wonder how many millions have already been spent for these 5 pleas? Thankfully our governement didn't have to spend much on their PR campaign with Rep. Murtha quite happy to spread their accusations of "cold-blooded murderers" and a willing media to repeat these accusations thousands of times.
So thankyou for your concern. It's so nice to know there are others on FR who care so much.
According to a dictionary, yes. In the eyes of the law (including the USCMJ), it depends.
I know that there are crimes commited even in War. I don't believe that half of these Marines and Corpsmen are guilty of any crimes. The Drive By media and the long list starting with pelosi, murtha, kennedy, HITERLY,and all the rest are the ones getting this in the news. Why is the Free Republic and people like LtCol. Ollie North the only ones that get the news out about our People in uniform that is TRUE? God Bless America and All who have and keep defending Her.
By any lawful as well as dictionary definition he is not a "cold blooded killer". Calling him one is just idiotic.
Is that you, murtha?
I'm merely making the distinction that, if we were in Illinois for example, he would be a murderer in the eyes of the law even though he didn't pull the trigger.
If a defendant in Illinois does not cop a plea to a murder and is not sentenced for murder, how is he a cold blooded killer (which is what others have called the lance corporal) in the eyes of the law?
It's one of those split-hair things.
The poster of this thread was wrong, got called on it, and ran away.
Found this from an older article, Sep 25,2006, in the North County Times. The prosecution spent a lot of man hours, effort, and money to get these pleas. You would think NCIS could spend just a little more money to tape all these interviews.
Amazingly, the motive has changed from the original assertion.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/09/25/news/top_stories/92301190403.txt
....."More than two dozen Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents have been involved in the Hamdania investigation, spending more than 7,000 hours on the case conducting more than 100 interviews, according to agency officials.
Despite assertions from defense attorneys and the accused men's family members, agency officials say privately that their investigation clearly demonstrated a squad out of control that conspired to kidnap and kill Awad after he would not provide members with information about insurgent activity in the area."......
Thanks for the find, Girl. I'll add it to the page later today.
It's important to ....understand the stakes and understand the nature of the enemy. They cannot exist without safe haven. And so one of the doctrines and one of the lessons learned after September the 11th is that we must hold people to account for harboring terrorists. If you harbor a terrorist, if you feed a terrorist, if you house a terrorist, you're as equally guilty as the terrorist.
The Murat Centre
Indianapolis, Indiana
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060324-5.html
Did you forget a /sarc tag?
TRUE
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