The military has charged seven Marines and a Navy corpsman with premeditated murder and other crimes in the April 26 killing of an Iraqi civilian in a village west of Baghdad, the US Marine Corps says.
All eight men face the possibility of the death penalty if convicted. They were charged with premeditated murder, larceny, conspiracy, housebreaking, making false official statements, assault, kidnapping and obstruction of justice.
Housebreaking? Larceny? So Iraqis have the right to feel secure in their homes, unless the US military decides it has reason to kick down their doors without warrants or oversight. I wonder what they stole, besides Mr Awad's life, dignity and a little piece of our humanity.
Military criminal investigators examined whether the servicemen fatally shot a 52-year-old disabled Iraqi man, Hashim Ibrahim Awad, in the face, then planted an AK-47 assault rifle and a shovel next to his body to make it appear he was an insurgent placing a roadside bomb.
This is different to blowing up an entire house, or bombing a wedding party and then claiming all the victims were insurgents about to plant a roadside bomb, somehow. I guess they must bring stuff with them to plant on anyone they happen to murder.
Joseph Casas, a defence lawyer representing Jodka, said his client was innocent and that military investigators used inappropriate methods to obtain statements from the troops in the case.
Casas said the statements were not "confessions" and that he would seek to have the statements suppressed at the trial.
"I can tell you with regard to my client, he was subjected to at least three interrogations, one of which lasted about eight hours without any food, water, restroom breaks, you name it," Casas said.
"The way that they obtained these statements is something that's going to be under our magnifying glass throughout this trial," he said.
The military held the eight suspects in "maximum" custody for three weeks, officials at the base said.
They were restrained with handcuffs attached to a leather belt and leg cuffs any time they left their mobiles.
Authorities slightly loosened the conditions last week to enable them to have no such restraints while inside jail, the base said.
Jane Siegel, another lawyer representing Jodka, said interrogators used "strong-arm" tactics and threats of life imprisonment to elicit statements from the eight men.
"The techniques that they used to acquire these statements are as close to old-fashioned psychological rubber hoses as you can get," Siegel said.
This is ironic, given that the US does in fact use actual real old fashioned rubber hoses, waterboarding and "pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death" to extract information from its other "guests" not charged with any crimes.
No comments:
Post a Comment