Trial under way in Hamdania killing (Camp Pendleton)

N C Times ^ | 9 July 07 | Mark Walker

[radar101]

Marine Cpl. Trent Thomas

The case against Cpl. Trent Thomas is the first to reach the full trial stage since he and seven other members of a Kilo Company platoon from Camp Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment were charged in June 2006 with the killing of 52-year-old Hashim Awad.

Thomas pleaded guilty in January to his role in Awad's death and said during an interview with CNN earlier this year that he took part in the plot. But three days into his sentencing hearing in early February, he withdrew the guilty plea, telling the court that he was following orders from co-defendant and platoon leader Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins, who is slated to stand trial later this month.

Thomas, 25, is being defended by six attorneys, three civilians and three military. The St. Louis-area native faces a mandatory life prison sentence if convicted of premeditated murder.

Monday's proceedings got under way with the judge presiding over the case, Lt. Col. David Jones, seating seven officers and seven enlisted men in the pool of potential jurors, who are referred as "panel members" under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The pool was whittled to nine after challenges by the defense and prosecution based on knowledge of witnesses and other issues.

At the conclusion of what is expected to be a two-week trial, two-thirds of the nine-member jury must agree on a verdict. If the members decide Thomas is guilty of all or any of the charges against him, the case will move immediately into the sentencing phase. Unlike civilian courts, it will be the jury that decides Thomas' punishment.

Victor Kelley, Thomas' lead attorney, told the court that the defense will present evidence that Thomas was following an order when he took part in the killing on April 26, 2006. He also said the defense will present medical witnesses who will testify about the infantryman suffering from traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of wounds suffered during previous deployments.

Kelley said that Thomas' earlier guilty plea and has no bearing on the trial.

"What happend in the past is in the past," Kelley said during a break. "Cpl. Thomas has asked to have his day in court and he will have that."

Thomas' wife, Erica, was in the gallery as her husband's trial got started, as was his mother.

The Hamdania case is one of three investigations into Iraqi deaths that have reportedly involved Camp Pendleton troops. Seven men from another unit face charges for their roles in the deaths of 24 Iraqis in Haditha in November 2006.

The third investigation, first disclosed earlier this month in a North County Times report, involves allegations that Marines killed eight Iraqi prisoners of war in Fallujah in November 2004.

Five of Thomas' squad mates pleaded guilty in exchange for sentences ranging from one to eight years. In addition, each must testify during the trial of Thomas and the upcoming trials of the remaining two co-defendants, Sgt. Hutchins and Cpl. Marshall Magincalda.

Prosecutors allege that Hutchins was the architect of the scheme that led to Awad's death, and that Thomas and Magincalda were the two men who dragged Awad out of his home in the middle of the night.

According to pretrial testimony from some of Thomas' co-defendants, the plan was to kidnap and kill a suspected insurgent, Saleh Gowad. Hours after hatching the plot in a palm grove, four of the eight men headed out to find Gowad, but they couldn't find him.

Squad mates have testified that when they did not find Gowad, the men collectively agreed to carry out the plan they had made a few hours earlier ---- and they grabbed Awad.

They marched the father of 11 children to the scarred site of a previous roadside bombing, shot him to death in a hole and then staged the scene to make it appear that the man had been planting a bomb, those who pleaded guilty have testified.

At first, Awad's death apparently raised no eyebrows among military officers. But when Awad's family and town officials complained, the battalion commander ordered an investigation.

See Tuesday's North County Times for a full report on Monday's court proceedings.

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

[RaceBannon]

Let’s hope he doesn’e crack and tells the honest truth about what happened.

[freema]

PENDLETON 8 (Hamdania-one dead jihadi)PING.

(NOT Haditha-several dead jihadis.)

[freema]

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&ie=UTF-8&ncl=1117910298

[Girlene]

Thanks for the ping, freema. From Reuters Prosecutor Lt. Col. John Baker, anticipating Thomas' defence, said Awad's death was murder.

"It's not an easy thing to sit on a murder case when the murder happened in the middle of a war," Baker said. "This is an old fashioned case of premeditated conspiracy to murder."

Even if the events unfolded as the prosecution contends, the premeditated murder charge doesn't adequately describe those events. If those events happened, these men weren't looking to kill someone for personal gain. They were trying to stop the planting of IED's that were killing Marines and Iraqis. I believe the number of IED's went down significantly after Awad, or whoever it was, died. Wonder if they actually had killed Saleh Gowad, if they would have been charged.

From an earlier NC Times article, Thomas' attorneys contend he was following a "lawful order" and should be acquitted of the charges.

Lead attorney Victor Kelley said last week that he expects testimony about who issued that order and what it involved.

"We are unsure about the genesis of the orders given and what they were," Kelley said. "If the entirety of the story comes out at the trial, I'm confident that we will get a correct result."

I hope Mr. Kelley is right and the entirety of this story exonerates Cpl. Thomas.