Posted on 07/13/2008 7:44:33 AM PDT by RedRover
A Marine sergeant charged with murdering an enemy combatant captured in Fallujah during the heat of battle repeatedly told Naval Criminal Investigative Service special agents he didn’t do anything wrong.
Sergeant Ryan Weemer’s words were captured during a lengthy 2006 interview with NCIS Special Agents Mark Fox and Tess Berg obtained by Defend Our Marines. The interview took place on November 16 in Chesterfield, Missouri, a suburb of Saint Louis.
A carefully cherry-picked version of his statement was revealed by the prosecution during Weemer’s Article 32 preliminary hearing last week.
Much less was said about Weemer’s apparent confusion, his overwhelming remorse, and his compelling need to seek absolution from the very people intent on putting him in jail.
Several hours of prodding and probing primarily by Fox revealed that Weemer, now 26, was an obviously disturbed young man who had lost his youth and much of his soul in the fiery cauldron of Fallujah.
During a battering, soul-searching interrogation, Weemer often sounded like a confused and sometimes incoherent young man tortured by his memories of the war. Despite a barrage of questions Weemer was unable to provide Fox with where the alleged killings occurred, when, or at what time.
Fox, a ruthlessly effective interrogator, used similar tactics to extract a pair of convoluted confessions from co-defendant Sgt. Jermaine Nelson during the international dragnet NCIS put on to bring the Marines up on charges. Like Weemer, Nelson waived his right to an attorney and was charged with murder after cooperating.
"I know there were five days or four days that went by I don’t remember much of because I was just, like I said, I just feel like I was there," Weemer explained at the Residence Inn where the NCIS duo batted his fractured psyche back and forth like a badminton shuttlecock.
"Would that be between the 9th and the 13th?" Fox pressed on.
"Yes. Probably, somewhere close – well I remember like the 13th seems like a day I can remember what we were doing. We were cleaning house and, but before that it seems that everyone was the same other than the incidents that happened," Weemer replied.
Weemer should remember November 13, 2004. On that day he was shot three times in the leg by a foreign fighter – a suspected Chechen who Weemer lit on fire with 14 shots from his pistol during an arm’s length gunfight in a darkened room of the infamous Hell House. Weemer was able to kill the man when he saw him in the fire of his burning equipment.
"His chest rig was still on fire so I could see his face," Weemer recounted in April 2006. "I shot him in the legs and when he went down in the doorway – I shot him in the face."
With him at the Hell House were Sgt John Winnick, LCpl Stephen Tatum, L Cpl Justin Sharratt, Sgt Jose Nazario, and Sgt Jermaine Nelson, despised by some of their own now for being criminals when they fought for their country.
Weemer and Nelson are currently under open arrest at Camp Pendleton on a federal contempt of court citation for refusing to testify before a federal Grand Jury in California. The civilian jurors are weighing the prosecutor’s desire to enhance charges of voluntary manslaughter against their former squad leader Jose Nazario to murder and unlawfully using a weapon.
Nazario and Weemer were both civilians when charged by the NCIS with committing crimes in Iraq. Nazario was arrested off his job as a police officer and frog marched in handcuffs past his peers on the way to a federal indictment in US District Court.
Weemer was recalled to active duty from college and a new wife in Louisville, Kentucky so he could be charged with murder and dereliction of duty.
Both Weemer and Nelson have since clammed up, leading an exasperated federal judge to jail them in June for contempt of court for refusing to testify against Nazario and each other after being granted unwelcome immunity. It was the second time Nelson had been sent to the slammer for refusing to talk.
The frustrated judge released them from a San Bernardino County civilian jail on July 3rd, in Weemer’s case after almost three weeks in a 12-man bullpen filled with common criminals.
Nazario is charged in US District Court for Central California for killing two of for insurgent prisoners his squad captured on November 9, 2004. He is scheduled to go on trial August 19, his attorney Kevin B. McDermott recently said.
Weemer told the agents that the incident at Fallujah was an exigency of war that resulted in the deaths of four insurgent prisoners his squad captured in the opening hours of the ground assault against the heavily fortified city. Only later, after much cajoling and correcting did Weemer admit he shot one of the prisoners. He couldn’t even explain why.
"And you’re talking two years later and now you want to bring all these things back up. You caught me on a good day, for one. Ummm, for two years I tried forgetting everything," Weemer says in response to one of Fox’s questions.
"Well, it isn’t by design," Fox assures Weemer.
"No," Berg agrees seconds before her partner asks Weemer why he told a Secret Service agent interviewing him for a job that he killed a prisoner. His revelation during a job interview triggered the investigation currently shaming the Corps.
When Weemer declines with a grunt to answer his accusatory question, Fox asks, "Okay, what does it mean to you?"
Weemer: "It means we had to go. Uh, we couldn’t take them: you know, we knew if we let them go they’re just going to run around our back side and pull out weapons elsewhere. The city was just covered with weapons everywhere."
ox: "Right."
Weemer: "We found [weapons] caches in all places, and we blew them all."
Fox: "Okay, so when you say take care of it you have to kill these guys or they are going to kill you later?"
Weemer: "Umm hum."
There's more at the LINK. This is the first in a weekly series of articles from Defend Our Marines that will lead up to the civilian trial of Jose Nazario on August 19th.
The most recent Fallujah threads on Free Republic are HERE and HERE.
For more background on the case, go Defend Our Marines. You can visit the Sgt Weemer website at DefendingAHero.org
BUMP!
These Marines have faced the same kind of harrassment—though without the media frenzy that magnified it a thousand-fold. Fortunately, the three Fallujah Marines will get their day in court. The “confessions” are all the prosecution has. The defense will easily destroy the credibility of the prosecution’s cherry-picked case.
All from 3/1.
Unbelievable.
This only increases my disdain for the NCIS and their methods of investigation of our troops for alledged crimes while in combat.
Another well written piece by Nat.
Yeah, it is.
P-Man: Thank you your honor, I got it right here Uh Uh uh... 
That is most incredibly excellent, fred!
You let the cat out of the bag!
One thing that's been bugging me is who made the decision to hace the CIA ask veterans of Iraq whether they'd witnessed an illegal killing. I figure they'd have to be pretty far up the food chain to influence the CIA.
I was doing a search for 'mark fox ncis' and stumbled across this;
After that fateful October meeting at Gitmo, Special Agent Mark Fallon of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service e-mailed a colleague, saying that what he'd heard there "could shock the conscience of any legal body" that might someday look into the Bush regime's interrogation methods. Added Fallon: "This looks like the kind of stuff Congressional hearings are made of."
At long last, the previously secret memos and e-mails detailing that October meeting and its consequences were disclosed, for the first time, at a June 17 hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee. The hearing was chaired by Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, who asked, with some alarm, during the testimony by former Pentagon officials: "How on earth did we get to the point where a senior United States government lawyer would say that . . . torture is 'subject to perception'?"
At a liberal rag;
Seems like a pretty direct link between NCIS and Carl Levin/ The Senate Armed Services Committee. I wonder who SA Mark Fallon's "collegue" was?
That is combined with the almost nonexistent support given to commands when they actually need a criminal investigator.
Also, my link doesn't appear to be working. Try again;
I really start to wonder who's behind these bogus prosecutions (including Haditha). The military is not a monolithic organization. After all, we have the likes of Wesley Clark and John Murtha who come from apparently solid military backgrounds (although Clark is somewhat suspect). Then there are the former military people who fought in Iraq that come out and run as typical anti-war democrats. If it's from a position of having seen the ugliness of war and wanting to avoid it all costs, I can appreciated their view point while disagreeing with it. But they don't say that. They just stick to the Bush lied - people died party line. What a strange people we are.
Speak for yourself. I prefer 'tad unusual'... :-)
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