Free Republic

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...

CAMP PENDLETON ---- A military prosecutor on Friday asked a Marine officer to recommend that a veteran of the legendary Fallujah battle be tried for murder for his admission that he killed a prisoner under his control. "While he is a remarkably sympathetic figure," prosecutor Nick Gannon said of Sgt. Ryan Weemer, "especially on these facts, this is not a gray area. It's black and white. It's right and wrong." Gannon bolstered his argument by pointing to testimony that Marines who took prisoners during the massive 2004 offensive in Fallujah were told to treat the detainees humanely and get them...

ANN ARBOR, MI – In Iraq, LtCol Jeffrey Chessani, one of America’s most effective combat commanders, led the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines — one of the Marine Corps’ most decorated units. After devoting over 20 years of his life to the Corps, and three tours of duty in Iraq, he was criminally charged by government prosecutors for the combat action taken by four of his Marines who engaged insurgents in a fierce house-to-house, room-by-room battle, after being ambushed in Haditha, Iraq on November 19, 2005. On June 17, 2008 Military Judge, Col Steven Folsom, USMC, dismissed all charges against LtCol...

The unflappable public affairs officer for the Marine Corps Central Command during most of the explosive Haditha and Hamandiyah affairs is moving on. Lt. Col. Sean Gibson has been transferred to Marine Corps Installation West at Camp Pendleton after a tumultuous time facing heat for the Marine Corps. Lt. Col. Gibson, who says his age is a “state secret,” never missed a beat running the Camp Pendleton Media Center when it was the epicenter of an international media feeding frenzy. Along with a small staff of Marine public affairs specialists, Gibson quickly and honestly responded to the endless barrage of...

Marine Corps Sergeants Jermaine Nelson and Ryan Weemer will celebrate Independence Day in a Camp Pendleton brig instead of the San Bernardino County Jail, Defend Our Marines has learned. Sergeants Jermaine Nelson and Ryan Weemer, both veterans of the famous "Hell House" fight at Fallujah, Iraq, are currently being held in the San Bernardino County federal lockup for contempt of court charges. They were locked up after refusing to talk to a Grand Jury seated in Riverside, California. A spokesman at Camp Pendleton is still trying to determine whether they have already been transferred to the Camp Pendleton brig at...

The federal trial of former Marine Sgt Jose L. Nazario is on hold until August 19, Defend Our Marines has learned. Presiding US District Judge Steven Larsen issued the order last week. Nazario’s trial was scheduled to begin July 8 at the US District Court for Central California at Riverside. Judge Larsen has also issued an unusual order to Nazario’s defense attorney Kevin B. McDermott to keep the Grand Jury testimony he received in discovery secret, and to return the transcripts to the court undisclosed to the public upon the completion of the case. The delay in the Nazario case...

Evidence introduced during pre-trial motions in the court-martial of Marine Lt. Col Jeffrey Chessani for his role at Haditha revealed that commanding generals of Marine Corps Forces Central Command are often preoccupied with court fights as well as battlefields while the seemingly endless investigations drag on. The Marine Corps Forces Central Command – CENTCOM – was assigned the onerous task of investigating and adjudicating the sensationalized charges against Chessani. CENTCOM is the umbrella organization that controls Marine Corps’ war fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Marine Corps designated the CENTCOM commander to be the convening authority and final arbiter in...

Chicago magazine, July 2008: "Web sites such as DefendOurMarines.com and DefendOurTroops.com feature tributes to the marines of Haditha. Bloggers have said the troops acted 'heroically' that day. Those supporters have scorned [prosecution witness, Sgt Sanick] Dela Cruz, deriding his testimony that he watched Wuterich gun down a group of Iraqi men who were surrendering. 'Dela Cruz is one of the sleaziest characters to emerge from the Haditha prosecution,' declared one writer on FreeRepublic.com, a conservative blog site. As this article went to press, the supporters had reason to be pleased: Of all of the men accused in the killings, only...

The US Navy-Marine Corps Court of Appeals has ruled that the CBS television news magazine 60 Minutes must turn over outtakes from its interview with Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich in which he revealed what happened at the so-called “Haditha Massacre” in Iraq more than three years ago. The three-judge appellate panel Friday directed Marine Corps military judge Lt. Col. Jeffrey G. Meeks to “conduct additional fact-finding” including an “in camera review” of the outtakes to determine whether Wuterich revealed any information the government needs to bolster its prosecution against the Marine infantryman. The ruling of the military judge...

Attorneys representing Marine Lt. Col Jeffrey Chessani will find out June 16 whether the presiding judge in the “Haditha Massacre” case will grant a defense motion to dismiss his charges because of undue command influence. If Folsom denies the defense motion Chessani will stand general court-martial July 21 for alleged dereliction of duty and orders violations, said Richard Thompson, chief counsel of the civilian law firm representing him. The veteran combat Marine is the highest ranking officer to be charged with a crime in the discredited massacre investigation. Four enlisted men and three officers under his command were also charged...

With this documentary, photo exhibit and book our aim is to raise funding for and awareness of the men and women warriors that have given so much to protect our freedoms. Freedom is not free. www.freedomisnotfree.com

Haditha: No Massacre, No Cover-UpBy Ben JohnsonFrontPageMagazine.com | 6/6/2008 THIS WEEK YET AGAIN PROVED THE PARTY OF DEFEAT'S KING WEARS NO CLOTHES. On Wednesday, a jury found Lieutenant Andrew Grayson "not guilty" of covering up the (un)massacre at Haditha. The 27-year-old had been accused of multiple counts of making false official statements and one count of attempting to deceive by making false statements. A charge of "obstruction of justice" had been thrown out the day before. More than simply another exoneration of those accused of wrongdoing in Haditha – the sixth of eight accused – this verdict will go a...

In the 18th and early 19th centuries, three "huzzahs" were given by British infantry before a charge, as a way of building morale and intimidating the enemy. The book "Redcoat" by Richard Holmes indicates that this was given as two short 'huzzahs' followed by a third sustained one as the charge was carried out.Defend Our Marines headline, June 4, 2008: “Verdict in the Lt Grayson trial---NOT GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS!” Huzzah!I feel one of the striking impressions of the Haditha case is the lack of leadership demonstrated by the Marine General Officers. One of the principles of leadership is to...

CAMP PENDLETON ---- A Marine sniper has been charged with two counts of voluntary manslaughter in the June 2007 deaths of two civilians in Iraq. The sniper, Sgt. John Winnick II, faces additional accusations of aggravated assault against two other civilians and failing to adhere to the military's rules of engagement. The charges represent the fifth case involving alleged unlawful killings in Iraq to have been brought against Camp Pendleton Marines since the U.S. invasion in March 2003. A hearing for Winnick will take place at Camp Pendleton this summer to determine if the charges against him should stand. The...

<p>Lt Andrew Grayson, a defendant in the infamous Haditha case, has been found not guilty on all counts by a seven-member panel of Marine officers at Camp Pendleton.</p>

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Prosecutors will call a top NATO general to address a potential conflict of interest in the case of a Marine officer charged with failing to investigate the killings of 24 Iraqi men, women and children, defense attorneys said Friday. Defense attorneys say Marine Gen. James Mattis, currently NATO's top commander in charge of military modernization, is scheduled to take the stand Monday during a hearing to address a military judge's finding that there was evidence of unlawful command influence in the case of Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani.

AMP PENDLETON – Seeing the corpses of 24 Iraqi men, women and children – all killed in a short span Nov. 19, 2005, in the city of Haditha – made a powerful impression on Marine Sgt. Justin Laughner. A squad of fellow Marines had done the killing. Laughner, an intelligence analyst, took pictures of the bodies and stored them on his personal laptop computer. Then one day in February 2006, he said, an intelligence officer told him to get rid of the images. In a Camp Pendleton courtroom yesterday, Laughner identified that officer at 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson. “He told...

A Marine charged with murder for killing an insurgent prisoner has been jailed in California for refusing to testify at a federal Grand Jury hearing evidence of alleged murder at Fallujah, Iraq. US District Judge Percy Anderson Wednesday ordered Sergeant Jermaine Nelson to confinement at the federal lockup in Los Angeles after giving him several opportunities to relent. “It was a beautiful thing to see,” said lawyer Joseph H. Low IV, the former Marine infantryman representing Nelson. “The prosecutors are attempting to break the bonds formed in combat. Nelson told them he’d rather go to jail than rat out a...

Three days after Memorial Day, the Marine Corps will court-martial the officer personally responsible for capturing the Al Qaeda terrorist who organized the ambush that triggered the so-called “Haditha Massacre”. On Wednesday, May 28, 1st Lieutenant Andrew Grayson will stand general court-martial for obstruction of justice and lying to investigators about the events at Haditha and attempting to obtain a fraudulent discharge from the Marine Corps. Last September the government dismissed two counts of dereliction of duty against Grayson. Two weeks ago military judge Maj. Brian Kasperczyk set the stage for Grayson’s court-martial during a final motion hearing at Camp...

The Marine Corps attorneys representing Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich in the so-called “Haditha Massacre” investigation are expected to step down without closure more than a year after their client was charged. Baring unseen events, they will be off the defense team by August 1 and likely earlier than that, according to civilian co-counsel, Mark Zaid. Meanwhile, Wuterich remains in limbo at Camp Pendleton while government prosecutors wrangle with 60 Minutes lawyers over video outtakes the government says will help prove the incident at Haditha was a crime. Wuterich's trial will take place sometime in the fall. Lieutenant Colonel Colby C....