Accused Haditha Marine passed polygraph exam

North County Times ^ | 12 JUNE 2007 | MARK WALKER

[radar101]

CAMP PENDLETON ---- A lance corporal charged with murder in the death of three Iraqi brothers in 2005 passed a polygraph examination when asked whether he was being truthful when he said the first man he shot inside a home was holding an AK-47 assault rifle, according to testimony heard this morning.

The test administered last spring showed there was no apparent deception in the account provided by Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt, said Naval Criminal Investigative Service Special Agent Nayda Mannle.

Sharratt is charged with three counts of unpremeditated murder for his role in the deaths of two dozen Iraqi civilians following a roadside bombing on the morning of Nov. 19, 2005. The 22-year-old rifleman from the base's 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment could face life in prison if ordered to trial and convicted.

Mannle's testimony came on the second day of Sharratt's hearing. She eventually became the lead agent for the Haditha investigation, which resulted in Sharratt and two other enlisted men from the battalion facing homicide charges and three of its officers being charged with dereliction of duty for failing to investigate the incident.

While acknowledging that the polygraph did not indicate that Sharratt's account to investigators was deceptive, Mannle also testified that the account the Marines gave of what happened when four homes were stormed by the Marines did not match what some family members of the slain Iraqis said occurred.

Sharratt is accused of killing the three brothers inside the last of four homes that were assaulted by Marines after a roadside bombing that killed a lance corporal and injured two others.

His attorneys are trying to show inconsistencies in the investigation, focusing many of their questions on why government agents did not pursue full background reports on the men who died inside the fourth home, particularly one man who worked on the Jordanian border and may have had several Jordanian passports in his possession.

Mannle said that probably should have been done and agreed that agents can still try to piece that information together. But she also said that none of the 24 victims who died in Haditha had any known ties to the insurgency.

"We ran them through the database and all came up as negative for insurgents," she said during telephonic testimony from an office in the Pentagon.

The defense also is trying to show that forensic evidence taken from a bedroom where men died inside the fourth house is inconsistent with an account given by those men's surviving family members, who told investigators the men were herded into that room and executed in rapid succession.

For a full report on Tuesday's court proceedings, see Wednesday's North County Times.

tact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.

[RedRover]

As the bishop said to the chorus girl...

Here you go (actually the article could be worse)...

Marine Officers Strategized Their Haditha Responses

A document entered into evidence in hearings related to the killing of Iraqi civilians in Haditha in November of 2005 reveals that Marine officers in charge of the squad in question met to discuss how they would handle a reporter's questions about the episode.

After a Marine was killed in Haditha by a roadside bomb, 24 Iraqi civilians were slain in three houses being cleared by a Marine squad. Staff Sgt. Frank Wutterich, who led the squad that day, has been charged with unpremeditated murder.

Hearings on the case against Wutterich and others are under way at California's Camp Pendleton.

Neither Wutterich's battalion commander nor anyone else in the Marine chain of command saw any reason to investigate the civilian deaths, even though several women and children were killed in their homes.

In January of 2006, Time magazine reporter Tim McGirk sent a series of questions to the military asking what had happened in Haditha on the day of the killings, Nov. 19, 2005.

Officers of the battalion in charge of the platoon and squad involved met to discuss their response to McGirk's questions. The notes that emerged from their meeting show how the Marines hoped to shape the story — and to prepare the officers to answer McGirk's questions.

It is unclear which one of the officers wrote a synopsis of their meeting, which was provided to NPR.

McGirk never went out to Haditha to interview those directly involved. He has said that his editors thought it to be too dangerous. Some of the Marines involved in the incident feel that it was unfair for him to file his story without talking to them.

Sgt. Wutterich told CBS's 60 Minutes that he made a logical guess that fire was coming from the houses they cleared. No one in the Marines' chain of command has testified that they saw any reason to suspect that a law-of-war violation had occurred.

Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the battalion commander, was charged with dereliction of duty for failing to properly report and investigate the incident.

Camp Pendleton is also now hearing pretrial motions on a case prompted by the alleged execution of a 52-year-old Iraqi man by a Marine squad in Hamdania.

[Girlene]

Actually, polygraphs are still used by some investigators to weed out or hone in on possible suspects before interrogations. Nayda Manlee chose not to believe a Marine who passed his, over the word of some Iraqis whose stories did not match his. She chose to do several things that don't make sense in an investigation looking for the truth.

Good to see you again, jude.

[freema]

I mean, it does not come up when searching for news on google.

[RedRover]

Same here.

(snicker)

[freema]

I’m getting tired. It took me a minute before it hit me.

[lilycicero]

"B'DonkeDonk!!

Yes, but can you come up with a song, "She thinks my AK-47 looks sexy?"

[Girlene]

Red, you wrote At risk of stating the obvious, I will.
Two journalists were given the NCIS investigative report: William Langewiesche of Vanity Fair and Josh White of the Washington Post.

Neither one breathed a word that Justin had passed a polygraph test nor that the Jordanian passports made it extremely unlikely that 24 innocent civilians were killed in Haditha.

Weren't the leaks rumored to have come through the Pentagon. NCIS SA Nayda Manlee {lead agent for the Haditha investigation) was testifying from an office in the Pentagon. Coincidence? Probably, but someone leaked 10,000+ pages.

[Girlene]

LOL! No true-blood country boy would come up with that title!

[lilycicero]

Don’t tell me you don’t know, “She thinks my tractor looks sexy” song. Maybe it’s the, “She thinks my humvee looks sexy”...don’t know.

[pinkpanther111]

AND... why is it you take the word of Iraqi’s over a Marine??????

[lilycicero]

Crazy is all I can say!

[pinkpanther111]

Yep I was shocked when I read this too... Amazing isn’t it?

[Girlene]

LOL, again. ‘Course I know that song, and it’s “She thinks my tractor’s sexy”. I meant no true-blood country boy would write about a sexy AK-47. “She thinks my humvee’s sexy”, has possibilities, though.

[Velveeta]

Of course he passed!

We never doubted that he wouldn’t.

[jazusamo]

AND... why is it you take the word of Iraqi’s over a Marine??????

Exactly, Panther!! And not just Iraqi's but insurgent Iraqi collaborators.

[Chickenhawk Warmonger]

Here’s the Slimes take on today’s hearing. Interesting info about how the NCIS conducted the interviews (no tape recorder- she forgot to buy one at the base). But -surprise, surprise - not one mention of Justin’s lie detector test results or the failure of NCIS to do even the most basic of investigations regarding the “civilians’.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/13/us/13haditha.html

[Defend Our Marine]

Chickenhawk, I posted this to Red and Girlene. I figure I would make it public..So here goes.
Mannle was conducting a group interview of the Iraqi’s in House 3, while another agent, Maloney was doing a forensic reconstruction in House 4. Mannle went to Maloney in House 4 and told Agent maloney that the story the women and boy gave her in House 3 did not coincide with what the Marines stated. Mannle told Maloney that the women and boy told her the Iraqi men in house 4 were killed execution style.(Maloney had a tape recorder and was taping the conversation and his forensic reconstruction) Maloney then told her his forensic reconstruction didn’t suggest an execution style killing. Maloney told her THE MARINES WERE NOT IN CONTROL OF HOUSE 4. He said there was a struggle in house 4 and the blood patterns did not suggest execution-style killing. This recording was played for the IO. Our defense team had it. Mannle knew that Maloney had the recording device. Jim Culp then proceeded to sketch out the blood patterns for the agent Platt. This evidence will be presented in detail when Agent Maloney testifies sometime this week. Yes, Mannle wants to believe the story of the Iraqi’s over our Marines. She fell on her face today.

Darryl Sharratt

[Chickenhawk Warmonger]

Darryl - thank you for the update. I look forward to more of the prosecution’s witnesses falling flat on their face. My best to you and your wife with a big hug of support for Justin.

[jazusamo]

Thanks for posting this, Darryl. Hopefully the IO is seeing this Mannle for what she is, a biased investigator.

The best to you all.

[Girlene]

The irony of the NY Times article, "U.S. Inquiry Hampered by Iraq Violence, Investigators Say" is simply hilarious.

Two naval investigators testified at a military hearing here on Tuesday that their inquiry into allegations that marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha in 2005 was hampered by insurgent bombs and gunfire as well as the absence of basic equipment like tape recorders.

Wait a minute. I thought there weren't any insurgents in Haditha?

Nayda Mannle, a special agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, said she had conducted a hurried group interview of six relatives of the men killed three months earlier, rapidly jotting notes of the translation of their overlapping responses as American troops stood outside, ready to fend off any attack by enemy fighters.

Another N.C.I.S. agent, Mark Platt, said he could not complete one interview of Iraqi witnesses in Haditha because the conversation was “cut short by small-arms fire.”

And then at the end of the article, As the marines hustled investigators from the home, a roadside bomb blew up nearby, Ms. Mannle said.

Let's see, you've got enemy fighters, small-arms fire, and an IED all during the one hour that this Laurel and Hardy team were "investigating". Nope, no insurgents in that neighborhood. I wonder if the dynamic duo got the point? Sheesh.