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The War Profiteers - War Crimes, Kidnappings,
Torture and Big Money |
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September 25th, 2006 - Three US
Marines to Be Tried for Murder in Iraq Case |
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Three US Marines to Be Tried
for Murder in Iraq Case By Will Dunham Reuters 25 Sep 2006 20:53:20 GMT Washington - Three U.S.
Marines will be tried on murder charges without the possibility of the death
penalty in the April shooting of an Iraqi man in the town of Hamdania in
central Iraq, the military said on Monday. Lt. Gen. James Mattis, the
top Marine general in the Middle East, decided that Pfc. John Jodka, Cpl.
Marshall Magincalda and Lance Cpl. Jerry Shumate will face courts-martial in
the shooting death on April 26 of Hashim Ibrahim Awad, the Marines said in a
statement from Camp Pendleton, California. The three were among seven
Marines and a Navy medic accused of dragging the 52-year-old Iraqi from his
home, shooting him dead and placing an assault rifle and a shovel next to his
body to create the appearance that he was an insurgent planting a roadside
bomb. The Hamdania shooting is one
of several in which U.S. troops are accused of killing civilians in Iraq,
including the the deaths of 24 people in Haditha in November last year. Mattis threw out several
lesser charges against the three Marines and dismissed an assault charge
against a fourth in a separate incident in the same town, west of Baghdad. He decided to take the cases
to trial after the military held so-called Article 32 hearings to examine the
allegations. No trial dates were announced. Following the lead of
military prosecutors, Mattis decided not to seek the death penalty, which was
available because the murder was deemed premeditated. Shumate also will be tried
on an assault charge for a separate April 10 incident in the same town
involving another Iraqi man, Khalid Hamad Daham. In that incident, the
Marines said, Mattis dismissed an assault charge against Lance Cpl. Henry
Lever, who no longer faces any charges. External link:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N25299120.htm |