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July 4th, 2006 - Iraq Seeks
Oversight of Rape-Slaying Case News
article by the Associated Press |
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Iraq Seeks Oversight of Rape-Slaying
Case By Sameer N. Yacoub The Associated Press Tue Jul 4, 5:38 AM ET Iraq's justice minister
demanded Tuesday that the U.N. Security Council ensure a group of U.S. troops
is punished for allegedly raping and murdering a young Iraqi woman and
executing her family, calling the attack "monstrous and inhuman." Justice Minister Hashim
Abdul-Rahman al-Shebli condemned the attack a day after former private Steven
D. Green appeared in federal court in North Carolina to face charges of
killing the woman's family so he and other soldiers could rape her. At least four other U.S.
soldiers still in Iraq are under investigation in the March 12 rape and
killings in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad. "If this act actually
happened, it constitutes an ugly and unethical crime, monstrous and
inhuman," said al-Shebli, a Sunni Arab. "The Iraqi judiciary should
be informed about this investigation which should be conducted under
supervision of international and human organizations. Those involved should
face justice." "The ugliness of this
crime demands a swift intervention of the U.N. Security Council to stop these
violations of human rights and to condemn them so that they will not happen
again," he added. On Tuesday, Iraq's largest
newspaper, Azzaman, expressed skepticism that the soldiers would be severely
punished. The newspaper said in an editorial
that the rape "summarizes what has been going in Iraq for the past years
not only by the American occupation army, but also by some Iraqi
groups." "The U.S. Army will
conduct an investigation and the result at best is already known. One or two
U.S. soldiers will receive a 'touristic punishment' and the whole crime will
be forgotten as it happened with Abu Ghraib criminals," the newspaper
said, referring to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. guards at a prison in
west Baghdad. Iraq's influential Sunni
Association of Muslim Scholars condemned the alleged crimes Sunday, saying
they were "a sign of shame to American invaders." According to a federal
affidavit, Green and three other soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division
had talked about raping the young woman, whom they first saw while working at
a traffic checkpoint near her home. On the day of the attack,
the document said, Green and other soldiers drank alcohol and changed out of
their uniforms to avoid detection before going to the woman's house. Green
used a brown T-shirt to cover his face. 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. Shots were heard. Green
allegedly shot the woman in the head after he and another soldier raped her,
the affidavit said. Green was dishonorably
discharged from the Army because of a "personality disorder" before
the attack came to light, the affadavit said. He is being prosecuted in
federal, rather than military, court because he is no longer in the Army. Copyright © 2006 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. External link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060704/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_rape_slaying Ex-G.I. Held in 4 Slayings and Rape in Iraq New York Times By David S. Cloud and Kirk Semple July 4, 2006 Washington, July 3 - A
recently discharged Army private has been arrested on charges of raping an
Iraqi woman and killing her and three family members four months ago in their
house, federal prosecutors said Monday. The former soldier, Steven
D. Green, 21, had recently been discharged from the Army for a
"personality disorder," the prosecutors said. They said Mr. Green
and other soldiers had discussed the rape in advance and carried out the
crimes after drinking alcohol, leaving a checkpoint and changing from their
uniforms into black clothing. A criminal complaint made
public by the prosecutors on Monday charged that Mr. Green shot the three
family members, including a child, with an AK-47 assault rifle found in the
house in Mahmudiya before he and another soldier raped the woman. Citing
interviews with unnamed participants, the document alleges that Mr. Green,
his face covered with a brown T-shirt, then "walked over to the woman
and shot her several times." It says the soldiers returned to the
checkpoint with blood on their clothes and agreed that the episode was
"never to be discussed again." Mr. Green, who appeared in
federal court on Monday in Charlotte, N.C., was arrested there on Friday, the
prosecutors said. The documents they made public provided the first official
account of the rape and killings, whose broad outlines emerged last week
after American military officials in Baghdad said they were investigating the
incident. The military originally thought Iraqi insurgents were responsible
after several Iraqis approached an American checkpoint and said a family had
been killed in their home, the charging documents said. The rape victim was
identified in the American court documents as a 25-year-old woman, but there
have been conflicting accounts of her age. In Iraq, the mayor of Mahmudiya
said Monday that the rape victim had been only 15 years old. The mayor, Mouayid Fadhil,
said that those killed included the rape victim's parents and her 7-year-old
sister, and that the attackers also tried to set the rape victim's body on
fire, apparently in an effort to cover up evidence. American officials said they
could not confirm that the house had been set on fire by soldiers. But the
complaint refers to crime scene photographs, including one showing a
"burned body." The case is one of five
recent incidents in which American military personnel have come under
investigation for killing unarmed Iraqis, and it is the first in which an
alleged participant has been charged in civilian courts, which prosecutors
said was necessitated by Mr. Green's discharge. A White House spokeswoman,
Dana Perino, said: "The president has full confidence in the military to
investigate alleged crimes and to punish anyone convicted of abhorrent
behavior that dishonors the proud traditions of our military. He will not
comment on ongoing investigations so as not to prejudice the outcome;
however, he believes that 99.9 percent of our men and women in uniform are
performing their jobs honorably and skillfully and they deserve our full
appreciation and gratitude." The charges were brought
against Mr. Green after public disclosure of the investigation last week led
prosecutors to fear he might try to flee, said Marisa Ford, an assistant
United States attorney in Louisville, Ky., where the charges were brought. The prosecutors said Mr.
Green was likely to be transferred next week to Louisville, a four-hour drive
from Fort Campbell, Ky., where his unit, the 101st Airborne Division, has its
headquarters. Cecilia Osequera, a public
defender who represented Mr. Green at his court appearance Monday, declined
to comment. The case is in federal court
because the crime was committed abroad. The Army is considering whether it
could reactivate Mr. Green in order to allow the military to prosecute him,
rather than leaving the case to civilian authorities, an Army official said.
If convicted in either military or civilian court, Mr. Green could face the
death penalty, prosecutors and Army officials said. Military officials have said
they first learned about the rape and killings last month, after Mr. Green
left the Army. He had received an honorable discharge after only 11 months in
the service because of what the charging documents described only as a
"personality disorder." His departure was unrelated to the
incident, the Army official said, adding that he had no more information
about Mr. Green's disorder. Army officials and
prosecutors said that, before his arrest, Mr. Green might have been planning
to attend a funeral service Saturday at Arlington National Cemetery for
Specialist David J. Babineau, one of three soldiers ambushed at a checkpoint
in Yusufiya in June. Two other soldiers who survived the ambush were taken
prisoner by insurgents and later killed and mutilated. Though Mr. Green and the
three ambush victims reportedly came from the same unit, the 502nd Infantry
Regiment of the 101st Airborne, so far, the Army official said there was no
evidence that the Americans had been abducted in retaliation for the rape and
killing of the Iraqis. Other participants in the
crimes are likely to be charged by military prosecutors and face
court-martial, a prosecutor involved said. At least three other
soldiers suspected of involvement in the rape and killing of the Iraqis are
being held in a military base in Iraq, but several soldiers interviewed by
prosecutors, identified in charging documents only as "sources of
information," said that Mr. Green was responsible for the killings and
that he and another unidentified soldier, referred to as a "known
participant," committed the rape. The incident came to light
last month after soldiers in the regiment were undergoing "a combat
stress debriefing" related to the ambush of three Americans, the
charging documents said. After entering the house, the compliant alleged that
Mr. Green herded family members into a back bedroom and closed the door. After
shots were heard, he emerged, telling the other soldiers, "I just killed
them. All are dead," according to one unidentified soldier. Participants in the attacks
later told another soldier who had remained behind at the checkpoint to
"dispose of the AK-47 in a canal across the street," the document
says. The Iraqi mayor, Mr. Fadhil,
said the body of the rape victim, Abeer Qasem Hamzeh, had multiple bullet
wounds and burn marks. Her sister, Hadeel, was shot in the head, he said,
reading from a hospital report; her father, Qasem Hamzeh Rasheed, who was in his
mid-40's, suffered head trauma; and her mother, Fakhariya Taja Muhassain, was
shot several times. Three sons were at school at
the time of the March 12 attack, the mayor added. An American military
official, who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on
the record, said investigators still had no firm ages for the family members
and said the rape victim had been classified by Iraqis in Mahmudiya as an
"adult." But in Iraq, girls who have reached child-bearing age are
often referred to as adults. American military officials
announced their investigation into the attack last week and said they were
pursuing allegations that soldiers from the 502nd Infantry Regiment were
involved. A committee of Iraqi
officials opened its own investigation into the case on Saturday after
conversations with the American military, Mr. Fadhil said. The committee
includes Mr. Fadhil, a judge from Mahmudiya, the director of the town's
hospital, the local police chief, a member of the Mahmudiya town council and
a representative from the Iraqi Army, the mayor said. An Army spokesman, Maj. Todd
Breasseale, said the American authorities welcomed the development. "We
would encourage any civilian judiciary or any civilian legislative arm to
explore their own investigation," he said in a telephone interview.
"That's what a free and open government system does. We wouldn't even
think to hinder it." David S. Cloud reported from
Washington for this article, and Kirk Semple from Baghdad. Mona Mahmoud
contributed reporting from Baghdad. Copyright 2006 The New York
Times Company External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/04/us/04arrest.html |