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The War
Profiteers - War Crimes, Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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July 13th,
2006 - Who is Paul E. Cortez? |
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Desert Dispatch By Adrienne Ziegler, Staff Writer Thursday, July 13, 2006 Barstow - In a town like Barstow where everyone knows everyone else,
finding anything about Sgt. Paul E. Cortez is a challenge. Armed with an old high school photograph and his name, most people
could only vaguely remember the 23-year-old Barstow resident who has recently
been charged with raping and murdering an Iraqi girl and killing her family
while deployed to Mahmudiyah, Iraq, south of Baghdad, on March 12. Calls to Cortez's old friends turned up fruitless. Each said they'd seen
him in the past couple of years but could remember little of their time spent
together and knew almost nothing about his family. Finding his mother, Pat Adams, still currently a Barstow resident,
took a two-day search of local motels before she finally appeared as a
shadowy face through a sliver of a doorway cracked open at the Desert Inn
Motel on Main Street and refused to comment. Barstow High School track and cross country coach Jim Duarte could
only say that the young man had been mostly a quiet kid during his one-year
stint on his team. Residents at the aged El Rancho Motel on Main Street recalled the man
and his mother living there at some point in the past few years but couldn't
specify when or how long. A conversation with the girl he dated when he was in the eighth grade
revealed only that the young man's ties to this small town are minimal. Of the five Fort Campbell, Ky., soldiers charged in the crimes, almost
nothing has been reported about him since the military released his name. Cortez was charged Monday with conspiracy to commit rape and murder,
conspiracy to obstruct justice, pre-meditated murder, rape, arson, house
breaking and violation of a general order. But who is Sgt. Paul Cortez? Though its not clear when he originally joined the Army, Cortez was
previously stationed at Fort Carson, Colo. He was reassigned to the 502nd
Infantry in the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell in January 2005 and
deployed to Iraq. Ex-girlfriend and Central High School classmate Alicia Fox had the
most to say about the man that she described as "skinny" and
incapable of a crime of that capacity. "He would never do something like that," she said. "He
would never hurt a female. He would never hit one or even raise his hand to
one. Fighting for his country is one thing but not when it comes to raping
and murdering. That's not him." Fox, who recalls graduating in 2000 with Cortez, said he had a lot of
friends when he did live here. She also said he was a member of New Life
Fellowship on Main Street and that he had been really involved in the
church's activities. Joe Green, the pastor at the church, declined to comment on the record
about Cortez. Ryan Cortez, 23, an unrelated friend, said that Cortez had been a cool
guy when he knew him in high school. He said the last time he had seen him in Barstow was six months to a
year ago while Paul Cortez was on leave. "He was a really cool, laid back kind of person," Ryan
Cortez said. "He wasn't a bad person. He was just a skater." According to reports, on or around March 12, Cortez allegedly drank
alcohol with former soldier Steven Green and two other soldiers in violation
of a standing general order as they discussed raping Abeer Qasim Hamza
al-Janabi, a 14-year-old Iraqi girl. According to allegations, shortly
afterward at least two of the four changed into civilian clothes to avoid
detection. The four went off armed and left a fifth soldier in charge of the
radio at their checkpoint. At the house 200 meters away, Green, who had been inside before and
wore a T-shirt over his face, went into a room with the parents and child,
according to news reports. Another unidentified soldier threw Abeer to the
floor. According to a federal affidavit, Green shot the parents and child
with the father's AK-47 rifle, then an unidentified soldier and Green raped
Abeer on the floor before Green shot her several times. It was unclear
whether Cortez or one of the other two soldiers were responsible for the
acts. The other victims in the girl's family were identified as: Qasim Hamza
Rasheed al-Janabi, 34, a laborer, his wife, Fakhriya Taha Muheisin al-Janabi,
43, and their younger daughter Hadeel Qasim Hamza al-Janabi, 6. Green pleaded not guilty in a U.S. federal court in Kentucky last week
to four counts of murder and one count of rape. He is being held without
bond. The other three soldiers face an investigation conducted under Article
32 to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is similar to a grand jury
hearing. The soldiers with a murder charge could face the death penalty. An al-Qaeda-linked group posted a Web video Tuesday that showed the
mutilated bodies of two U.S. soldiers and claimed it killed them in revenge
for the rape and murder of a young Iraqi woman by American troops from the
same unit. U.S. investigators had previously said there was no evidence linking
the deaths of the three soldiers last month to the rape and murder of the
Iraqi girl. The Ar my announced investigations into the deaths June 30. The Associated Press contributed to this report. External link: http://www.desertdispatch.com/2006/115280358752599.html |