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July 3rd, 2006 - Ex-Soldier
Charged with Rape of Iraqi News
article by the Associated Press |
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Ex-Soldier Charged With Rape
of Iraqi By Tim Whitmire The Associated Press Monday, July 3, 2006; 3:38 PM Charlotte, N.C. - Federal
prosecutors accused a former U.S. soldier Monday of raping and murdering a
young Iraqi woman and gunning down her family, all of whose bodies were found
burned in an apparent coverup. Steven D. Green, a
21-year-old former Army private first class who was recently discharged
because of a "personality disorder," appeared in a federal
magistrate's courtroom in Charlotte Monday. The murder and rape charges
against him grew out of a military investigation involving up to five
soldiers in the March rape and killing of the woman in Mahmoudiya and three
of her relatives, one of them a young girl believed to be about 5 years old. Prosecutors said Green and
others entered the home of a family of Iraqi civilians, where Green shot the
three relatives, and he and another soldier raped the woman and killed her.
According to an accompanying affidavit, photos taken by Army investigators in
March showed a burned body of "what appears to be a woman with blankets
thrown over her upper torso." FBI agents arrested Green on
Friday in Marion, N.C. He is being held in Charlotte without bond pending a
transfer to Louisville, Ky. The case is being handled by
federal prosecutors there because Green, who served 11 months with the 101st
Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., is no longer in the military.
According to an affidavit filed with the criminal complaint, he was given an
honorable discharge "before this incident came to light. Green was
discharged due to a personality disorder." He faces a possible death
sentence if convicted of murder. In Baghdad, a U.S. military
spokesman, Maj. Joseph Breasseale, said "at this time" no other
charges have been filed in the Mahmoudiya case. The mayor of Mahmoudiya, Mouayad
Fadhil, said Monday that Iraqi authorities had started their own
investigation. He said U.S. Army officers were also seeking permission to
exhume one of the bodies; the U.S. military declined to comment on the report
because the investigation is ongoing. The age of the rape victim
was also unclear. U.S. officials close to the case have described her as a
young woman, and FBI documents estimated her age at 25, but a neighbor of the
family said the rape victim was 14 and her sister was 10. The affidavit filed in
Green's case by FBI special agent Gregor J. Ahlers of Louisville said Green
and three other soldiers from the 101st's 502nd Infantry Regiment were
working a traffic checkpoint in Mahmoudiya on March 12 when they conspired to
rape a woman who lived nearby. According to the affidavit's
account, the soldiers changed their clothes before going to the woman's
residence to avoid detection. Once there, the affidavit said, Green took
three members of the family - an adult male and female, and a girl estimated
to be 5 years old - into a bedroom, after which shots were heard from inside. "Green came to the
bedroom door and told everyone, 'I just killed them. All are dead,'" the
affidavit said. The affidavit is based on
interviews conducted by the FBI and investigators at Fort Campbell with three
unidentified soldiers assigned to Green's platoon. One of the soldiers said
he witnessed another soldier and Green rape the woman. "After the rape, (the
soldier) witnessed Green shoot the woman in the head two to three
times," the affidavit said. Ahlers said in the affidavit
that he also reviewed photos taken by Army investigators in Iraq of bodies
found inside a burned house, including photos of an Iraqi man, woman and
young girl who all appear to have died of gunshot wounds. He said he also
reviewed a photo of a burned body of "what appears to be a woman with
blankets thrown over her upper torso." An official familiar with
details of the investigation in Iraq has told The Associated Press that a
flammable liquid was used to burn the rape victim's body in a cover-up
attempt. U.S. officials have said they believed the victims were killed in
sectarian violence. On Friday, the U.S. military
acknowledged that Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman, commander of the 4th Infantry
Division, had ordered a criminal investigation into the alleged slaying of a
family in Mahmoudiya. Four members of the 502nd
have had their weapons taken away and were confined to a U.S. base near
Mahmoudiya, officials said. The suspects belong to the
same unit as two soldiers kidnapped and killed south of Baghdad last month, a
military official said on condition of anonymity because the case was under
way. The military has said that
one and possibly both of the slain soldiers were tortured and beheaded. The
official said the mutilation of the slain soldiers stirred feelings of guilt
and led at least one member of the platoon to reveal the rape-slaying on June
22. According to the affidavit
filed Monday, investigators learned of the March 12 attack during a combat
stress debriefing that occurred around June 20. Green will have a
preliminary hearing and a detention hearing on July 10 in Charlotte, and will
then be brought to Louisville, said Marisa Ford, chief of the criminal
division for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Louisville. Associated Press writers
Brett Barrouquere in Louisville, Mark Sherman in Washington, and Robert H.
Reid and Kim Gamel in Baghdad contributed to this report. © 2006 The Associated Press External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/03/AR2006070300399.html Details Emerge in Alleged Army
Rape, Killings By Ellen Knickmeyer Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, July 3, 2006; A15 Baghdad, July 2 -
Fifteen-year-old Abeer Qasim Hamza was afraid, her mother confided in a
neighbor. As pretty as she was young,
the girl had attracted the unwelcome attention of U.S. soldiers manning a
checkpoint that the girl had to pass through almost daily in their village in
the south-central city of Mahmudiyah, her mother told the neighbor. Abeer told her mother again
and again in her last days that the soldiers had made advances toward her, a
neighbor, Omar Janabi, said this weekend, recounting a conversation he said
he had with the girl's mother, Fakhriyah, on March 10. Fakhriyah feared that the
Americans might come for her daughter at night, at their home. She asked her
neighbor if Abeer might sleep at his house, with the women there. Janabi said he agreed. Then, "I tried to
reassure her, remove some of her fear," Janabi said. "I told her,
the Americans would not do such a thing." Abeer did not live to take
up the offer of shelter. Instead, attackers came to
the girl's house the next day, apparently separating Abeer from her mother,
father and young sister. Janabi and others
knowledgeable about the incident said they believed that the attackers raped
Abeer in another room. Medical officials who handled the bodies also said the
girl had been raped, but they did not elaborate. Before leaving, the
attackers fatally shot the four family members -- two of Abeer's brothers had
been away at school -- and attempted to set Abeer's body on fire, according
to Janabi, another neighbor who spoke on condition of anonymity, the mayor of
Mahmudiyah and a hospital administrator with knowledge of the case. The U.S. military said last
week that authorities were investigating allegations of a rape and killings
in Mahmudiyah by soldiers of the 502nd Infantry Regiment, part of the 4th
Infantry Division. The mayor of Mahmudiyah,
Mouyad Fadhil Saif, said Sunday that the case was being investigated by the
U.S. military as an alleged atrocity. Janabi was one of the first
people to arrive at the house after the attack, he said Saturday, speaking to
a Washington Post special correspondent at the home of local tribal leaders.
He said he found Abeer sprawled dead in a corner, her hair and a pillow next
to her consumed by fire, and her dress pushed up to her neck. "I was sure from the
first glance that she had been raped," he said. Despite the reassurances he
had given the girl's mother earlier, Janabi said, "I wasn't surprised
what had happened, when I found that the suspicion of the mother was
correct." The U.S. military has not
identified the victims. U.S. military officials contacted this weekend said
they did not know the names of the people involved or most other details of
the case, although one military official confirmed that according to
preliminary information gathered by investigators, the family lived near a
U.S. checkpoint and the killings happened about March 12. The military official
pointed to one discrepancy in the accounts, however. Preliminary information
in the military investigation put the age of the alleged rape victim at 20,
rather than 15, as reported by her neighbors, officials and hospital records
and officials in Mahmudiyah. U.S. soldiers at the scene
initially ascribed the killings to Sunni Arab insurgents active in the area,
the U.S. military and local residents said. That puzzled villagers, who knew
that the family was Sunni, Janabi said. Other residents assumed the killings
were sectarian, with Shiite Muslim militiamen as the likely culprit. But on June 23, three months
after the incident, two soldiers of the 502nd came forward to say that
soldiers of the unit were responsible, a U.S. military official said last week.
The U.S. military began an investigation the next day, the official said. Officials said last week
that none of the four soldiers under investigation had been detained,
although one had been discharged for unrelated reasons. Family members have given
permission for exhumation of Abeer's body, Janabi and the mayor said. The case is at least the
fourth American military investigation announced since March of alleged
atrocities by U.S. forces in Iraq. The rape allegation makes
the Mahmudiyah case potentially incendiary in Iraq. Rape is seen as a crime
smearing the honor of the family as well as the victim in conservative
communities here. Death certificates viewed
Sunday at the Mahmudiyah hospital identified the victims as Fakhriyah Taha
Muhsin, 34, killed by gunshots to her head; Qasim Hamza Raheem, 45, whose
head was "smashed" by bullets; Hadeel Qasim Hamza, 7, Abeer's
sister, shot; and Abeer, shot in the head. Abeer's body also showed burns,
the death certificate noted. Janabi said U.S. soldiers controlled
the scene of the killings for several hours on March 11, telling neighbors
that insurgents were responsible. The bodies of the victims were taken to
Mahmudiyah hospital by March 12, according to Janabi and an official at the
hospital, who spoke on condition of anonymity. On March 13, a man
identifying himself as a relative claimed the bodies for burial, the hospital
official said. An hour after the man left with the bodies, U.S. soldiers came
to the hospital and asked about the bodies, the hospital official said. The next day, the hospital
official said, soldiers scoured the area, trying to find the funeral for the
family. "But they did not find
it, simply because the relatives did not do it, because the death includes
the rape of one of the family members, which is something shameful in our
tradition," the hospital official said. "The family kept the
news a secret, fearing the disgrace," he said. "They thought it was
done by militias, not U.S. forces." Reached by telephone
Saturday at his home in Iskandariyah, south of Mahmudiyah, a member of the
extended family would not discuss the incident. "What is the benefit of
publishing this story?" said Abeer's uncle, Bassem. "People will
read about this crime. And they will forget about it the next day." Two special correspondents
in Mahmudiyah and special correspondent Bassam Sebti in Baghdad contributed
to this report. © 2006 The Washington Post
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