CAMP PENDLETON -- Calling the defendant a "manipulative Marine," a military prosecutor on Wednesday pressed a jury to convict a junior officer of lying when he told investigators there were no photos of the aftermath of the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians.
The government also wants the jury to find that 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson tried to get a discharge from the Marine Corps before his case could come to trial.
"Lt. Grayson is not some victim of a botched investigation (brought) by media pressure. He's a liar," Lt. Col Paul Atterbury said in his closing arguments of Grayson's trial. "He has a motive to lie and a desire to avoid accountability."
But that motive to lie simply does not exist, Grayson's civilian attorney, Joseph Casas, countered during his closing.
Casas attacked an early investigation into the Haditha, Iraq, slayings and argued that Grayson's conflict with an Army colonel overseeing the probe led to the initial accusations that Grayson lied.
The "arrogance" of the investigator "is one of the reasons Lt. Grayson is here," Casas said of the charges.
None of the charges Grayson faces is tied to the actual slayings, but rather the aftermath of them. The 27-year-old Ohio native was a military intelligence officer on the day of the killings, but was not at the scene.
Grayson is accused of lying to investigators and trying to fraudulently get out of the military after charges were levied.
If convicted on all charges, Grayson faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.
Jury deliberations are set to get under way Wednesday afternoon.
Grayson is the first of the Marines with charges tied to the Haditha slayings to see his case go to court-martial.
The Nov. 19, 2005, Haditha killings grew into the largest war-crimes case involving civilian deaths since the start of the Iraq war.
Three months after the deaths, as media inquires were getting ready to rocket the Haditha killings to the front pages, military brass ordered a look at whether there had been a failure of leadership when no one pressed an investigation into the deaths.
Grayson is accused of lying to an investigator in that probe, as well as to investigators in subsequent probes.
The deaths of two dozen Iraqi civilians at the hands of U.S. forces led to international condemnation, and, eventually, to criminal charges against four enlisted Marines accused as triggermen, and four officers accused of a role in the aftermath, including Grayson.
In addressing the jury, Casas pointed to the judge's decision this week to drop a charge that Grayson had obstructed justice, which prosecutors said happened when Grayson told an enlisted Marine to delete photos of the dead.
"One of the greatest charges we started out with is no longer before this court," Casas told the jury. "It's like the government ran a 90-yard punt return and got called back to line 10."
The seven jury members hearing Grayson's case are all officers. Each has combat experience, ranging from deployments in the current conflicts to service in the 1991 Gulf War.
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (AP) - A military judge has told a jury to focus on the accusations against an Ohio Marine in the killings of 24 Iraqis -- and not to revisit the larger case.
The judge says jurors are only supposed to consider the charges before them in the court-martial of First Lieutenant Andrew Grayson of Springboro (Ohio). He is the first of 3 Marines scheduled to be tried in the biggest U.S. criminal case involving Iraqi deaths to come out of the war.
The judge handed the case to jurors after closing arguments today. A prosecutor and defense attorney offered starkly contrasting views of Grayson.
Grayson says he did nothing wrong and wasn't at the scene of the killings of men, women and children in Haditha in 2005. He is accused of a telling a sergeant to delete photographs of the dead from his digital camera and laptop computer.
As I understand it, 2/3 of 7 = 4.67 = 5 to convict, 3 to lock.
Getting this in the afternoon, I'm not surprised that we have no answer yet. To handle it responsibly, the jury would have to go through the material and sort it out.
Does your stringer have any impressions of the jurors and what they were thinking?